You know all about setting goals and reviewing or checking in on them. Do you ever think about relationships the same way? I admit I tend to not take apart relationships while I am in them. I go with whatever is happening. I do, though, go back after a relationship ends and look at all aspects of it.

I really got to thinking maybe this topic didn’t fit here. I want to talk about healthy living and art. The more I considered this topic, the more I realized relationships are part of healthy living.

My last relationship ended in February. I thought I was upset. I did not end the relationship, although I had previously broken things off with this guy twice before. One of those break ups lasted two months. I think my hurt was more over the fact that I hadn’t stuck with the break up, not that he was ending it. I guess the clarification came when a friend who had asked how things were going told me I seemed fine with the break up.I realized I did. The why of that is what I wanted to dig into so whatever would not block a future relationship.

We had nothing in common. While I was raised by my grandmother, he was raised in a two parent home. From what I could gather, I had the more normal childhood. I saw both my mother and my father growing up, just did not live with them. I graduated high school near the top of my class. I went to college and had plans to go on to a graduate degree before getting married instead. He didn’t graduate from high school.

Ultimately, that difference did not matter. It was the present and the future that were too different and probably would never meet. I tend to be very pragmatic but also optimistic. He was constantly pessimistic. I had spent years raising my children and felt like I suddenly had another that needed me to buoy him up. I saw myself writing forever, in other words no retirement. He worried about when he couldn’t physically do his job any longer. Where he saw his life after retirement was not where I saw my future. I saw this, even when we were in the relationship. He did not.

In retrospect, I realized he never met any of my friends. Yet, he thought I should meet his. He spent some time at my home but when push came to shove, I was the one who would pack up for a week and stay at his apartment. I made friends where he lived.

I truly see those months as a learning experience. I let myself become isolated by doing what he suggested. I was, as my friend noted, not upset to be on my own again. There are definitely parts of being in a relationship I miss but I’m taking the experience, learning from it and moving on.