He says that maybe we just want different things out of life.
And I'm terrified that he's right.
He wishes he could give me everything I want out of life.
And I try to tell him that he's all I'll ever need. But I can't convince myself that that's true.
I want to get married. He's afraid of commitment.
I want kids. He doesn't.
I want him all to myself. He wants an open relationship.
I want to settle down, dig my roots in, start a family. He wants to spend the rest of his life traveling the world.
I want a home. He wants adventure.
I want familiarity, reliability, security, stability. He wants spontaneity and excitement.
I love schedules and routines and traditions. He wants the freedom to book a plane ticket on a whim and never look back.
I want a career. He just wants an easy way to fund his travels.
I've tried some serious self reflecting, to figure out what I want out of life and what I need to be happy.
But I didn't like the answers I found.
I need stability.
I need commitment.
I can deal with him seeing other people, if I know that, no matter what, at the end of the night, he'll always come home to me.
'Cause, as much as I hate the idea of him being involved with other people, what hurts the most is the fear that they could steal him away from me at any moment.
I can deal with never truly having a home to call my own. Traveling from place to place on a whim. Never feeling like I'm a part of my community. Never feeling proud of my country.
But I need there to be some constant. I want that constant to be him. I could handle spending my whole life traveling if he could promise me that he would be the constant factor in my life. But he isn't sure if he could ever spend the rest of his life with one person. And that breaks my heart.
I could live without the ring. If he promised that he'd always be mine.
I could live without a family, if he promised that he would be my family.
I could give up on my career, my dream, if it meant that I got my fairytale ending. But he can't promise me tomorrow. He can only promise me today.
But today is not enough.
Maybe I can't be what he wants.
Maybe I can't be what he needs.
But I want to be.
I'm changing myself for him.
I'm making up a new personality. One that fits better with what he wants out of life.
I'm giving up every dream I had for my future. In the hopes that, someday, maybe, I could have a future with him.
Am I giving up too much?
Is it worth it?
Am I fooling myself?
Am I just delaying the inevitable?
I spend every moment of my life fearing that it will be our last.
I can't sleep. I can't eat. I stay up most nights crying.
We've been together for a year and a half. We spend the last year of that making plans for the future. And, for the first time in my life, I wasn't scared. I was excited. I was finally getting the fairytale ending I always dreamed of. And now I feel like my whole world is crumbling.
I love him.
And he says that he loves me, too.
But it looks like I'm just not enough for him.
I guess I should have known. Fairy tales don't happen in real life. Not to girls like me.