Several friends of mine have gone through breakups lately, and all of that has gotten me thinking about relationships. It's funny, because a few months after C & I started dating, I remember talking to a friend about my reservations about C. She told me that it took her a full year to really be sure she wanted to be with the man who is now her husband. At the time, I remember thinking "Wow, a whole year? How do you stay with someone for that long if you're not sure? Can I do that?"

When I look back on that time now, I see that I was focusing on the small annoying things C did because I was scared. Scared of getting involved with someone again, scared of investing myself and scared of getting hurt. I was using any little excuse as a reason not to get close to C. I would avoid talking about any kind of event more than month or two in advance.

I know that a lot of my issues are left-over from what happened with Fab. I also know that C is a different person, and I've done my best not to project those onto my relationship with him. But those subconscious fears still manifest themselves at times, usually after we have an especially wonderful day together. It's pretty much a given that that night, I will have a nightmare in which he cheats on me and I wake up with tears in my eyes, feeling like my heart is breaking all over again. Like my brain is telling me "Watch out, don't get too close". And I feel bad for C, because I don't want him to think that I don't trust him. I do. And I believe him when he says he won't cheat on me. But Fab also said that, and I believe 100% that he meant what he was saying.

Until the day he didn't mean it anymore. And that's what scares me.

But as time goes on, I still had a little twinge of "FLEE" when C mentioned an event that would be happening in October, but mostly it's reassuring that he is able to project us that far in the future.

And for the first time, I feel I have a real partnership with someone. Our relationship is so equal, something that still surprises me after all those years of living in Bretagne and watching those poor Bretonnes do all the cooking, cleaning & child-rearing. It was one of the main issues I had with living there and also one of the reasons I never wanted kids - that was just not the kind of life I wanted. I fully support women who choose to do that, but it riles me up when that choice is imposed.

I don't know where this post is going, but I'm just trying to put down on paper what I've been trying to sort through these past few weeks. What I do know is that when I try to picture my life without C, it's hard. When I travel for work, I feel like part of me is missing. And when I think of myself back in my little shoebox, it seems like eons ago.