Category: NonTraditional Nelle

For us, everything happened all at once. That night of our first kiss, was also the night we were each reborn. The moment we touched each other’s skin, we knew life as it had been – was over. It was a kiss that said I’m in love with you, I’ve been waiting for you my entire life, and when those actual words followed quickly after, we knew our lives were about to change forever.

As certain as we were about our love, we were still two attached women. But within a month, our lives looked completely different than they had before that night.

The month that followed was full of undoing and becoming undone in ways neither of us had ever experienced.

I broke off my engagement two days before I defended my doctoral research, and a few weeks later told him of my big change of heart. I explained as best I could that I was gone before Her, I was just too scared to tell him. That She didn’t break us, we were already broken. He believed me a little, but then, my actions made him wonder the depth of that truth. They say that actions speak louder than words, but I think fear can speak loudest of all – and I was frozen in my fear of leaving my kind, stable boy for years before I ever knew She existed.

For me, for he and I, it was the ending of a very long chapter and then a sudden stop in the start of a new one. We both moved out of the apartment we’d been living in together for over 4 years with our 10+ years of collective belongings. We had given our notice, as we were less than a month from closing on our first home. But those dreams were never realized, we – I – stopped them in their tracks. I gave back the engagement ring and he insisted I keep the gift he had gotten me for earning my doctorate – even after I told him I thought it was best he didn’t come see me defend, after all the years he stood by my side supporting me. That month was a little like a guillotine to our relationship, by the end of it we didn’t see each other and didn’t even have a need to communicate in any way. All at once we were untangled, and just like that we were no longer each other’s person.

There is something so cruel about knowing your choice of authentic happiness is directly hurting another person, destroying them even. You have to believe that he will find his authentic happiness too, and that as much as he thinks it was you, you pray for the day he knows it isn’t. And you’ll witness a level of desperation you’ve never seen before, a child-like frantic search for a way to stop what is happening, knowing yourself that it’s simply not possible. I knew without any hesitation that our relationship had run it’s course, that we were never meant to be forever, and we might have even been well past our expiration date.

What I think might, to this day, be one of the hardest pieces of choosing a big, bold, beautiful love over the quiet, calm, and stable one I had always known, is that my grief had a different timeline than his – and it was all my own. For years before I left, I grieved. I had wanted so badly for us to work, for our love to be the love I had always dreamed of. To be that story – the high school sweethearts who make it through everything, and sit back together at 90-years-old, dying in each other’s arms, like in The Notebook. But we were never going to be that love story. Together, we weren’t those people, making it through ‘against the odds’. We had no odds, we weren’t connected enough to make it through a lifetime together. And when I started to realize little by little how the life I had been imagining wasn’t ever going to come to fruition, I grieved. But he never saw me grieve, he never knew that my heart was broken by us too, he didn’t know because my grief showed up much, much earlier than his. I grieved the loss of a life I wasn’t even quite sure existed, but that I wanted to believe did. And because I didn’t know if it existed, I stayed in the life I had. It would have been crazy to leave for a dream…wouldn’t it?

But then, when my dream came true, all at once, it didn’t feel crazy to me at all. It felt like the most obvious answer to every question I had been asking since I was a little girl. It washed over me like that first rip tide you’re not expecting, the undertow pulling you down to the point where you almost can’t breathe – but when you come up for air you feel more alive than you ever have before. Grieving at this point feels wasteful, like you’re finally given this sacred chance of rebirth, you can’t spend it being worried about what the ocean bottom might have looked like if that current had never come along. It did, it swirled and mixed-up everything that was calmly in it’s place, and now everything is different, everything has changed. All at once.

People ask why May 26, 2012 means so much to us, how it became our date. It’s simple, really. That night was the tidal wave that crashed into our lives, strong and steady, and changing everything in it’s course. You wouldn’t ask the ocean to go back to the way it was before, so it would have been foolish for us to even try.

 

Missing a piece of this puzzle? Check out all the NonTraditional Nelle Narratives here!

And check out my Big Change of Heart story in Elephant Journal here!

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The problem with knowing it’s time to go, is that you give yourself permission to be absent, before you’ve actually left.

Or at least, that was my mistake.

I knew with no uncertainty that I was going to end my relationship, break off my engagement, give up the first house we were weeks away from owning. And right next to that was the fact that I had a very real, pressing deadline rapidly approaching that the rest of the world deemed as “more important” – my doctoral defense. I was to defend my doctoral research on Friday, June 8th. I had worked tirelessly to get to that point, and it was true that I had to give it my all just to get by. I told myself, fine, I will give it my all, I will put my focus there, and then…I will go.

I started having that conversation with myself after that night in Connecticut. I started telling myself it was only a few more weeks before I would start the next, real chapter of my life. It was only a few more weeks before I was going to undo everything I had put together ever so carefully in the past 10 years…

And because I was so focused on all of that, I really didn’t even see her coming. At least, not like I would have thought.

The months leading up to my defense were insanely stressful, but also filled with celebration – as very dear friends were getting married that April – in Puerto Rico! Although I was close with the couple, I really had only met them through friends of the groom. So when all the pre-wedding festivities began, I met several of the bride’s friends, and She  was one of them. We crossed path a few times, but really met at the bachelorette weekend in Newport, RI – and immediately clicked. Maybe because I was surrounded by so much “heteronormative” adult behavior (marriage festivities, buying houses and the like), I just assumed we were going to be great friends. Nothing else crossed my mind whatsoever.

We did become great friends, and fast. We exchanged numbers when we were in Puerto Rico (to make sure we all knew when we were leaving and going to group events, obviously), and from that moment on we basically never stopped texting each other. Harmless really, maybe a little suggestive or flirtatious had my mind entertained that possibility. It wasn’t until one night, left alone by our exhausted male counterparts, that we opened up a different level of deep conversation. And after that conversation, I knew we were both women who were open to the fluidity of sexuality on some abstract level.

But still, I didn’t it let it be about us. Not yet anyway.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t smile to myself more when I thought of Her in the weeks that followed our sexuality conversation than I had the weeks prior, but I didn’t know what that meant really. Or maybe, I didn’t want to know, because I had him, still. The week before Memorial Day 2012, She invited me to hangout with her and her kids that Saturday. She said it was a long-shot, that I probably had plans (it was a holiday weekend after all), but her husband would be at a bachelor party late into the night and she would love the company. I don’t think I have ever agreed to something so quickly in my life.

I suppose I should have known by my own behavior that there was something different with Her, but for once I was wildly self-unaware – perhaps more on purpose than I’d realized at the time.

I told him that I was going to Her house that Saturday to hang with Her and the kids, to keep Her company while her husband was away. I didn’t talk to him about it, I told him my plans. I didn’t usually do that, because that’s not really the way relationships work.  But again, I had given myself permission to check-out of my relationship…while I was still in it.

I can still remember getting ready to go to Her house that afternoon, choosing a casual summer dress I’d worn a million times, never with a bra (I’m a braless kind of chickie in the summer – or whenever possible), and asking him if I should wear a bra with that dress. His puzzled expression and question, “aren’t you just going to hang out at Her house?” to which I quickly replied, “yea, no, I know, right…” was a clue that I was thinking along different lines for the first time.

And then I couldn’t help but wonder in my own mind, why did it feel like I was getting ready for a date?

I brought a bottle of our favorite rum from PR, she made me dinner. We had champagne and wine, a lot of it. Every way I looked at it, it looked like a date. But we weren’t talking about it.

The kids went to bed, the beverages kept flowing, and we found ourselves talking late on the couch in the basement, the same place we learned about each other’s fluid sexuality.

And suddenly the conversation was absent of words. And suddenly she was kissing me. The most gentle, soft, life-changing kiss.

She stopped to ask me if that was ok, and even though on a thousand levels it wasn’t (I wasn’t actually unattached), I found myself saying yes…

 

Missing a piece of this puzzle? Check out all the NonTraditional Nelle Narratives here!

And check out my Big Change of Heart story in Elephant Journal here!

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When we hit that 3 year mark and I, for the first time, questioned everything – I remember my initial feeling: complete panic. I looked around and thought – how can I undo all of this? Our lives were so intertwined. Everything was him. Pictures, friends, family, routines…all of it was him. He took up so much space in my life, I couldn’t breathe when I thought about the idea of undoing all of that. The idea of separating my entire life from his…was unimaginable. And it was clear. I wasn’t ready.

At the time I thought my unreadiness was a sign that I still wanted to be in, that I was still in love with him. It might have been, or it might have been that my fear was winning out the truth in my heart. Maybe I just wasn’t strong enough to face the music. Maybe I knew I should, but I didn’t want to admit it. I don’t know completely, all I know is that I wasn’t ready. And knowing that meant that if I was going to stay, I better be all in.

I never told him what I was thinking that summer. It was probably the first time I had ever withheld any of my feelings from him at all. I told him I wasn’t happy with how we were, but I never went so far as to say that I had thought about leaving or that I had even planned how and when I would break up with him (that just seemed like salt in an open wound). So he moved along unassuming, as he should have. And I moved right along with him.

He never did anything wrong. I don’t think he ever did, really. Yes, he frustrated me and we had arguments from time to time, but only the kind that comes naturally from sharing your life so intimately with another person. There were things that bothered me that I would tell him time and again, but ultimately those were not the reasons that caused me to leave. The reasons I left were separate from the reasons we weren’t perfect.

I was never sure, and I’m still not, how much he knows that or believes that – that truly there was nothing he could have done to change the outcome of our relationship. It was just that we had run our course. We loved each other well for a good long while. And for me, that’s as far as we were meant to go. Maybe it was already written in the stars, maybe it was set to be that way.

The 7 years that followed my initial questioning were filled with a lot of people. People that really made me think about the kinds of relationships I wanted to have in my life – romantic, friendships, and family. Although I probably knew this somewhere in my heart for my entire life, I wasn’t someone who could handle smalltalk – I was a “get into the meat of it” kind of girl. Dive in deep, get to know a person, and enjoy the ride. The people that I kept in my life throughout those 7 years I really knew. No repeat surface conversations. No Disney-perfect lives. We knew each other’s ugly and we loved each other anyway. And through those relationships I realized something very important…my relationship with him looked nothing like that.

I talked, a lot. I shared everything that was on my mind, exhaustively. It was like I had a lifetime of thoughts to get out and “now” was the time. He listened, really, really well – sort of. He let me talk, tirelessly. He didn’t necessary retain all of what I said (not that I blame him), but he was a definite sounding board. I knew I needed that, being the middle-child that comes with the territory. But what I wanted was more than that. I wanted an equal sharer. I wanted someone who would bare their soul right back with me. I wanted the kind of open, raw honesty I had with my friends and family to show up in my relationship. But it just wasn’t.

And it wasn’t his fault, that’s not who he was, and it’s certainly not what he signed up for. He was hired to be the sounding board, he was good at being the sounding board, he liked being the sounding board…but I went ahead and changed the job description. Solid, stable sounding board no longer required. Heart-centered empath willing to bare it all inquire within. Yikes. I was finally realizing that the person who was filling the position wasn’t meeting any of the requirements. He was showing up every day to the wrong office and giving his best. And yet I was completely unfulfilled.

I felt awful. How unfair, for both of us. He was being himself, and I wasn’t. When I was myself, he couldn’t reach me. It wasn’t that we were suddenly ships passing in the night, it was a complete and utter change in trajectory that neither of us saw coming. And I was the only one who noticed. He might have stayed forever, but I knew I couldn’t. I knew that he would spend his entire life trying to be the heart-centered empath willing to bare it all if I told him that’s what I needed him to be, but he would never be able to be that person. I knew that I could have him as my kind, stable sounding bored forever. But this time, when I looked around, I didn’t feel panic. I felt like I was finally calm and stable all on my own. I knew that who we were for each other would matter forever, but who we were going to be next would be even greater. I knew, with no uncertainty, that it was time to go.

 

Missing a piece of this puzzle? Check out all the NonTraditional Nelle Narratives here!

And check out my Big Change of Heart story in Elephant Journal here!

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I can still remember exactly where I was standing the moment I knew I couldn’t stay with him. We’d been engaged just under 5 months, together for over 10 years, and I knew we weren’t going to make it through the 11th. In that moment, it was the most sinking disappointment I think I’d ever experienced. I thought I’d had it all worked out, I thought I was doing it all “right”. We were high school sweethearts, he was the captain of the football team (I was a theater girl), we survived separate colleges, we lived together for several years, and we were even about to buy our first home… wasn’t this what they called the good life? How could this feeling – this knowing that this wasn’t the right life for me – hit me so strongly when we were engaged and less than a month from closing on our house. How could I know with such certainty that I wouldn’t be happy in a life with him anymore, that I just didn’t want it anymore. Standing outside on a warm May night in Connecticut, surrounded by friends old and new, I looked into a large bay window to see the person I had said I would marry. And there he was – sitting on a couch alone, disconnected, half asleep, detached from life. And I knew.

If I am going to be honest with myself, it wasn’t the first time I’d questioned how “right” we were; far from it.

When we started dating the summer before our senior year of high school, I was over the moon – both with him and the concept of having a serious “someone” of my own (it seemed everyone else had already had a few chances at this that I’d missed out on). He was my person, and I always wanted to have a person. I had so much going on in my head, I just wanted someone who would listen and be there and love me through it. I talked, and talked, and talked. My family was wild and crazy and his stoicism was appealing. Nothing seemed to rattle him, he would just say “I’m sorry, that sucks” and listen without being affected. That was foreign to me, and a bit amazing. It felt settling, it felt like I wouldn’t come apart at the seams if I was around someone like that. It was a solid comfort. We spent all of our time together – too much time together – to the point where people stopped calling to see if either of us could hang out. But we didn’t care. We were young and just happy to have each other. And for the first two years of our relationship that was more than enough.

When we left for college after a year of dating seriously and believing we would be together forever, we both struggled. I had always been more outgoing than he was, but I found myself with a strange lack of confidence in unfamiliar surroundings. He felt the same way, but he often felt that way. The result? We spent nearly every weekend of our first two years of college together, and without anyone else. We had grown comfortable with each other, we barely even spoke when we were together, it was just being together that seemed to make us both feel better.

It wasn’t until the summer after our second year of college that I started to question what we were becoming…and who I was turning into. I took a waitressing job at a popular chain restaurant and he took a construction/landscaping job. Inevitably this meant that we barely saw each other – I started my shifts after 10am and worked late hours, he started before the sun was up and was in bed before my shifts were even over. Once a week he would come to my restaurant and sit in my section to order a meal before going home to bed. All of my coworkers thought it was the sweetest thing and they loved when he came to visit me. I did too, but I remember wondering what I loved most about it. He didn’t talk much when he came in (he never talked much), he was tired and hungry, so he would eat quick and leave right after. It was sweet, he was supportive, but I also distinctly remember that it was really nice to be able to say that my boyfriend was sitting at table 92. I made some really great friends that summer and they adored him. Well, they adored us together and were envious of his stable love and support. He was the big brother to all the girls and his silence intimidated half the guys, but we were consistent and everyone knew we were an item and that was fun at first.

Near the end of that summer, just before our 3 year anniversary, I felt the pull for something more. I had felt alive all summer with my newly acquired friends and regained confidence, and it was the first time I’d felt that way since…high school ended. That alone was a sad realization. I didn’t want to lose the energy I felt again by being around people that I truly enjoyed! I had a couple harmless “work crushes” that summer, but nothing that made me want to be with someone else, it was more that I was questioning if I could really be happy staying with him. I knew he wasn’t the extraverted, energized type – he was my kind, stable boy who loved me with everything he had in his own quiet, calm way. I just didn’t know anymore if that was the kind of love I was looking for. I wasn’t sure that it was the kind of love I needed anymore. When I finally put words to these feelings at the end of the summer, it was my older sister and best friend that heard them. I told them I wasn’t sure I could stay, that I thought it was time to end things, that I wanted to beak up with him. And both thought I was crazy. He was one of the few good guys out there, they reminded me. He wasn’t like “other guys”. It was just a rough patch because our lives were so mismatched, it wasn’t a reason to end a 3 year relationship. And even though I already knew how and when I was going to have the conversation with him…I listened, and I thought – maybe they’re right. So, I stayed.

The next few years were somewhat of a blur when it came to our relationship. Life got busy and we just drifted along together. We finished college, moved in to an apartment together, I started graduate school, he eventually found a job in the city, and we just kept going… I didn’t have time or energy to stop and think about why. I had something to lean on, someone to fall back on, and amidst all the transitions, that was good enough. When I felt unhappy, I took full responsibility – it was my family drama, grad school stress, my weight, etc… It was something that I could work on and fix and it was always outside of us. So I put in the work and used him as a support all the while. I learned, grew, and changed tremendously as I unraveled myself from the family drama, succeeded in my graduate studies, tackled my weight…but eventually all that change led me to a place where I wanted more. My life was full of all of the things that mattered most to me – family, great friends, good career path, health…everything was growing and yet my relationship was stagnant. And looking into that bay window that May evening of 2012, I knew I had outgrown my relationship. I knew I was leaving.

 

Missing a piece of this puzzle? Check out all the NonTraditional Nelle Narratives here!

And check out my Big Change of Heart story in Elephant Journal here!

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