Dirty Laundry

Ok. So I guess it's time to air my dirty laundry. Part of this process is to ask other people to be completely honest about their life. That is the way that you can really get the bottom of things and make some real changes in your life.

So here goes:  I was in a relationship for 9 years. Truthfully the best 9 years of my life. With a partner that treated me better than anyone has ever treated me (well maybe a tie with my amazing grandmother). In fact, in our circle of friends, we were the only couple that had some kind of stability and compatibility that lasted.

For a big chunk of our relationship I was undergoing this whole "spiritual" journey. I put that in quotations because the term spirituality has a lot of baggage and assumptions about it. More than spirituality I was on a mad hunt to discover the best way to live my life.

So to spare you the boring details about that (some details will definitely be revealed in later posts) I will move up to the culminating event that began this whole thing.

I knew that I could no longer go on living the same life that I was living. The weird part here is that it was a damn good life. I mean the irony here is that I wasn't leaving some miserable situation. I think that this highlights the power of the process I underwent. It actually compelled me to leave a good life behind.

So, like I said I was with my partner for 9 years. We had a rental house together and 4 really awesome cats. This thing was brewing up inside me and I really didn't express or communicate this to him. We had a vacation planned to go to California during the Thanksgiving holiday. I thought that this might be it and I kinda made half assed arrangements (a big one was quitting my job) that I would stay in CA rather than go back with him to Pittsburgh. He knew nothing. I really wasn't sure that I would actually stay, but there were some interesting signs that said I was on the right path.

So, we had a wonderful trip and visited some of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. I broke the news halfway thru the trip that I probably was going to stay. Of course he wasn't thrilled but he handled it like a real trooper. If I questioned before that he cared about me, it was no longer a question.

It was tough on me, but especially him. That's really hard to see when somebody that has treated you so well is hurting. I would never ever wanted to hurt him. So I stayed. Left him with the house (with rent due) and the cats. Just like that. I can't emphasize enough the fact that this pull in me was super strong. Nobody would actually understand it unless you felt the same way I felt.

The only thing I can do at this point is do my best to make it up to him somehow. If this thing works out, I will. I am counting on it. I said at the beginning of this blog that I wasn't a nice guy. Nice people don't do what I did. They would have made better plans, worked it out so that the impact on other people was minimized. I didn't do that. I think that my reasons will become clearer as the blog goes on. That's the point. This is a process and if you come along for the ride you will learn as I learn. That's all I can ask.