This very minute I am supposed to be at Wembley Stadium enjoying a tailgate in advance of the NFL football game between Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, that is not to be because despite professing his deep love and affection for me, last night RacquetballGuy signalled that when he got back to Chicago he didn’t want to progress further.

This declaration caught me off guard and angered me greatly. No things weren’t going perfectly, but I didn’t think he would give up so easily. He had pursued me over the years when I told him to stop. Heck he was transferring to London for work and I was a big part of that decision to pursue an international assignement.
And then just earlier in the week he had once again admitted how foolish he had been for letting me go the first time and had promised that he wasn’t going to do that again. He was going to give me time to adjust. Now he’d had a change a heart. So I thought, why wait until he got back to Chicago, let’s just end it now before it’s even really begun. So that was it. As much as I wanted to go to the game, I told him to count me out as I no longer wished to keep up the charade.

Since he arrived last Monday, he kept telling me everything I was doing was wrong. Also, how much he wanted the Ursula he had been communicating with via the phone and text — I was apparently more outgoing and inviting. The me he got in person was standoffish, reserved and signalled that I didn’t need him or wanted him there to begin with. That couldn’t be further from the truth and really wasn’t my attention. I merely wanted to take things slow – perhaps a bit too slow for him as it all gave the impression that I didn’t really like him or want to be with him.

In my defence, we have such a complicated history and while I remember the good times, I also remember the bad times. So my anxiety with regards to him leaving/withdrawing from me again was/is extremely high. So perhaps he was right, he never had a chance this third time around because as much as I wanted to bury them, the bad memories were still very much front and centre.

And maybe, just maybe, I realised that ending up with him would be too great a compromise. Crazy considering that I’ve spent nearly 5 years pinning for him and even not dating others because I held out hope that he would eventually make good. Now here he’s trying and I couldn’t get my head around the whole thing.

So ce la vie! It not in the cards and I haven’t even shed a tear. Surprising since it’s that time of month and I’m sick with a cold again further increasing my irritability. But then, maybe I really shouldn’t be surprised that I haven’t cried now that its truly ending. The reality is that I had hoped for the best but I had expected the worst. And so I’ve had ample time to prepare myself for the fact that not only are we not going to live happily ever after, we also aren’t going to be friends. He wants to be friends, but really, I can’t do it. It’s just all too painful.

So turning the page for good this time. No turning back. I’m ready to embrace destiny now that I’ve accepted what has been obvious to everyone but me for the past five years. RacquetballGuy and I were not meant to be together. So enough now.

Time to pick up another book. This one isn’t going to get any better. In fact, it just gets worse. Not because he RacquetballGuy is a bad person, we’ve just outgrown each other and things that I would have accepted willingly five/seven years ago because I loved him then and still do for that matter are now too irritating to ignore.