Crappity crappity crap.

So Jen met a great guy who makes her happy--and, more importantly, makes her feel SANE AND NORMAL? It must be time for the other shoe to drop, naturally. (And those of you who know me know how rare that whole "sane and normal" part is, LOL. I'm not calling too much, emailing too much, looking ahead to the future too much, getting too clingy or emotional or ANYTHING. I'm just sitting back and enjoying the time we spend together, letting things develop at their own pace while still enjoying MY life and keeping up with MY interests. I don't plan my life around him, I merely fit him INTO it. Seriously, this is the most normal relationship I've ever been in. Which makes this whole next part that much suckier.)

For those of you who don't know, Tyson used to be in the Peace Corp, which means that he is able to go to grad school virtually for free. That federal program only applies to certain schools, however; and the closest one is Western Illinois U., a good six hours away. This past weekend, he drove out there to check it out--to look at the campus and the town and to learn more about this particular program he was interested in. It's something I've known about pretty much since the beginning, but, in New and Improved Jen Fashion, I've been trying not to think about it or worry about it too much till it actually HAPPENED, till I knew if I actually had something to worry about or not. He emailed me on Sunday (he had snuck into the computer lab) to say that so far he wasn't too impressed with the town itself but that he still had his official university tour on Monday. Well, he got back today....and here's the email I sent out (with, of course, my usual blog-related modifications, post-email changes, additonal thoughts, etc...okay, so it's not at ALL like the my original email). ;)

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He called me tonight. Although he wasn't impressed by the town, he did like the tour of the campus, the people he talked to and the program itself. He still doesn't know if grad school is what he wants, though, or if he just wants to get out of radio in general. So he hasn't made a definite decision on the grad school thing yet. The bad news (for me) is that he hasn't ruled it out yet, either. He's applying, he said, but mostly just to keep his options open at this point in case he DOES decide to do it.

We had our first serious "us" talk tonight, and that part was really good. Basically, it was established that we're both pretty into each other, we aren't dating other people and we don't WANT to. We really enjoy the time we spend together and every date we have ends with us liking each other more. HOWEVER, I dont know what's going to happen if he decides to leave. We talked about that a little, about how LD relationships are incredibly hard even for established couples, let alone one who has been dating a relatively short time.

I told him that if we weren't going to try to carry it on after he left, that *I* wouldnt be able to date him until he DID leave....that I didn't see the point, frankly, in spending all that time with him, growing to like him even more, and then having it flat-out end in June (which is when he'd leave). As far as I was concerned ( I told him calmly and adultly), if we weren't going to carry this on after he left, then *I* wouldnt be able to date him until he DID leave....that I didn't see the point, frankly, in spending all that time with him, growing to like him even more, and then having it flat out end in June (which is when he'd leave). (I know myself well enough to know that I'd get way too emotionally involved and then be that muc more hurt when he left.) My bottom line, I explained rationally and thoughtfully (really, I did damn well) was that I've dated enough to know a good thing when I saw one, and that as far as I was concerned, I'd rather see HIM once a month than some other guy every day. He said that although he pretty much felt that same way about ME, he also knew that LDRs never worked for him in the past and he didn't know if he'd want to even try one again. I told him that I understood, that it would be hard enough to try to make a new, fledgling relationship work long-distance without his added stress of starting graduate school, etc.

Anyway, we left it at this: first things first, he has to decide if he's going to go or not. We're going to keep doing what we've been doing while he tries to sort all this out. I told him he has to decide if it's this particular line of WORK he wants to do (some kind of tourism thing) or if it's just a general CHANGE he's after. And that's what he doesn't know yet....if he's just excited about a change in general or about THIS SPECIFIC CHANGE. Then we hung up cuz he's getting sick and he had to go to bed.

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I have to say (this is me again, not my email. I orginally had my email italicized but that kept screwing up the formatting of my whole blog for some reason) that I'm really proud with the way I'm approaching this whole thing. As much as I want him to stay, I'm also being as objective as possible when I talk to him about it. I told him that relationship aside, I was also his FRIEND, and I wanted him to reach the decision that was best for HIM. And I really do. I want him to be happy. And if that means grad school in Illinois...then yeah, that would suck, and frankly, I'd be pretty crushed, especially after our talk tonight, when, ironically, I feel closer to him and more "couple" like than ever before. Okay, back to the email.

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Sooooooo....I dont know, guys. Especially after this conversation, I'd be walking on air normally cuz we both really like each other and this could really be something....which makes me even sadder that he might be leaving and, if he is, it may mean the end of "us". And it sucks that we have to talk about ANY of this after like 6 weeks. The timing is just horrible. He said something about that tonight, how if we hadn't just met, if this relationship wasn't so new, it would be a whole different story (as far as continuing this thing if he DOES end up going).

So we'll see.

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On a somewhat related note, it's been two weeks today since I quit smoking, and although I've slipped up here and there, I'm choosing to focus on the hundreds (literally) of cigarettes that I HAVEN'T smoked in that time frame as opposed to the 7 or so that I have.