Conclusions

I have come to a conclusion.

Not yet.
Not now.
Maybe never?

If that is the case, which I know is a possibility, then maybe it is time to make a choice. For a while my relationship was in the balance. I had an option to leave and I didn't. The reasons are really neither here nor there, what is clear to me now is that I have made a choice and that choice is one man. And that man says not now.

He's never said never, but the thought that he might has haunted me for days and weeks on end in the past. As we struggled through this last year it became a roar in my ear telling me I needed more than maybes. I hate not knowing, that much I do know. So a few weeks ago I turned the question around. What if "not now" did mean "never"? I thought and thought and debated with myself but the line held and every time I  came back to the same answer. The answer was, "then it meant never". I didn't go insane, I didn't beat the earth or scream the walls down. I just let that assumption settle into my chest.

It hurt. It still hurts. It may always hurt. But I want my marriage to work first and foremost right now. What ever the future brings will be a blessing, even if that doesn't include children. I'll have a life with a man I love, experiences doing the things I love, and maybe taking risks that I'd never take if I was waiting. I will have friends and a family around me regardless of what life brings me. If I am to be the eternal aunt then so be it - I'll be a damn good one!

I'm crying as I type this. I can't really explain why. But seeing it in black and white is like the final stage. Acceptance of something I never had in the first place I suppose.

I had always been so sure, growing up, the direction my life would take. What I'd do for a living, what my partner would be like, where I'd live. None of it has come true, even the stuff I thought had is falling by the wayside. So it's time for some new certainties, some new futures - one day at a time; in control of only that which I can control.

It's a new outlook and it means leaving a lot of dreams on the bedside table, not gone, but not held on to. But I think it will work out for the best in the long run.

We shall see.

Maybe.