i'm thinking about what my life would be like now, what i would be like now, if i were celebrating this as the fourth anniversary of my relationship with adrienne instead of as shalla's 25th birthday. and i'm coming to a strange conclusion: i don't think it would be as good. a lot has happened to me in the interim that simply wouldn't have happened if i were in a stable relationship, and i don't just mean romantically; it's here that all of my gloom-and-doom pronouncements about LDR's pay off. i know i say this so much it's suspicious, but i really don't think i would have grown as a person if i had the constant approval of the person whose opinion i respect most. it hurt a lot, but her rejection of me caused me to look hard for reasons.
and i found a few. nothing insanely huge, but the check for cancer turned up a lot of other problems with my body. i fixed my diet, and i am better for it today. when i was with adrienne, i remember distinctly being happy with who i was, and in retrospect there were a lot of things that person couldn't do. he wasn't good in groups. he wasn't responsible or dependable. he was living in a shelled life without a cohesive comprehension of the real world. to be sure, being immersed in that same world, with its rent-paying and neighborhood-kids-including, has had a lot to do with this.
this honestly is the biggest reason why i'm happier today than i think i would be had i spent these extra two and a half years with adrienne. i've learned to find happiness in a larger variety of things, although this is not without its downside (namely, that i have to wonder whether there's anything i really like.) i always had this conception of the perfect relationship (okay, not always, but for some time now) being one where we go out and do interesting things individually as well as together and then come home and analyze them to death; i'm feeling more and more confident in my ability to hold up my end of the bargain. it's not that i have the interesting things in my life right now, at least not to the extent that i would like; it's that i finally have enough courage and an extroverted enough mindset to actually go out and do the interesting things.
work in progress, of course, but i'm living a much more multi-faceted life than ever before. given the choice, yeah, i would throw it all away for true love, but the beauty of true love is that you don't have to throw anything away.
happy december 12, whatever it means to you.