Self- Defense

When I was living in Lancaster, I dated a young British man named Richard (yeah I’m going to talk about an ex). After a couple of weeks he decided that he didn’t want to date me anymore. I listened to him calmly as we sat together on my dorm room bed. I cannot remember his argument exactly but it centered somewhere around the fact that I was leaving to go back home in a couple of months. After he had stated his case, I told him that I thought he was right and that we should break-up. He sat there confused. He had expected a protest, I assume, and my acquiescence had startled him into thinking that I didn’t really want to date him at all. You see- as I calmly stated to him- that was not the case. I believe that if there is a point where you think that you should break up with, or no longer date, a person and if you believe in this reason strongly enough to tell them about it, then you should, most definitely, end the relationship. Because, if there can be a doubt in your mind strong enough to start the dialogue of a breakup then it will assuredly lead to one whether immediately or many years down the road. My statements had the strange effect of changing his mind and making him realize that he didn’t want to break up with me at all.

Three weeks later we broke up.

The point is this- sometimes we don’t take our own advice. There have been many times when I have decided that I shouldn’t be dating someone for a particular reason but I continue because they (or me) talked me back into it.

Reasons don’t just go away.

They also don’t just appear and acting like they did is only lying to yourself.


*As I slept on my brother’s couch Saturday night, I thought of this story. Birthdays usually don’t have a mental effect, but, somehow, at 22 I can say, ‘things are changing’.

Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear
And I can’t help but ask myself how much I'll let the fear take the wheel and steer
It's driven me before, it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal
Lately, I'm beginning to find that I should be the one behind the wheel
Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there with open arms and open eyes…
It's driven me before, it seems to be the way that everyone else get around
Lately, I'm beginning to find that when I drive myself, my light is found