Surviving My Late Twenties: Losing the Love

The relationship I alluded to at the end of my previous post seems to have crashed and burned. This morning, following two days of exchanging words, I was blocked on WhatsApp - the medium that was our primary means of communication due to the distance involved (he's in the U.S., I'm in Nigeria, and there's a 6 hour time difference.)

I had a strong feeling of sadness one evening, two years ago, shortly after we had become a couple. He asked me why I was sad, because I'd begun to sob, and I told him that I had just gotten 'the feeling' that he was going to leave. I don't remember what happened after that, whether he reassured me or not, but I do remember that he was understanding and non-dismissal of what I was feeling. **he did leave, for the U.S. exactly a year later**

These were the qualities that had made him so special to me. The things I had to constantly explain to people - about myself, a situation, or life in general, he just always seemed to get and understand. Perhaps because he had more life experience than the others before him, after all, there was a 15 year age gap, but that didn't matter because he got me. There was also a great deal of patience, and tenderness. Being with him felt like being home, and this is perhaps one of the lessons life is trying to teach me; you can't make/find a home in others, especially when there are still parts of you you haven't opened up to and accepted yet.

Speaking of parts of me I haven't accepted, apparently I had changed, I had become bitter and he wouldn't have bitterness in his space. Yes, I have changed, and I am still changing. Life really did me in last year, and it apparently is still at it. After spending so much money and time and energy applying to go back to school (for a PhD), 4 out of 6 institutions have turned me down. So my backup plan (after leaving my job) is really hanging by the threads here. Of course with all the rejections and growing uncertainty of where my life is headed, it's hard to be peachy, and so I don't blame him, and frankly, I don't blame myself either.

I want to make a case for myself; that while I am not entirely happy with my life situation, 'bitter' is quite an exaggeration of my general state of being at this time. It hurt to be called that, especially by someone who I thought knew me, and had definitely seen me when I was at my best. I find myself doubting that he even knew me at all.

I know that I would have let that relationship go a long time ago if I didn't feel like needed it, and perhaps I did. However, it's gone now and since I have exhausted my tears in the last few months, I have none to shed. Also, I get "the feeling" that I have not seen the last of him yet, so maybe it's too soon to cry him a river. We'll see.