Note: This is a long sappy, depressing post and as much as I’ve dreaded writing it…I have to for my sanity. So bear with me please!
So if you follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook, you know I’ve had some big decisions I’ve had to make recently. I know I was a little vague in my posting, but it is a.) not easy to talk about and b.) was not set in stone yet. Now, however, it seems everything is set in stone and I can share.
As I’ve mentioned, Alex graduated last Saturday (yes, I realize I don’t have this post up but right now…my emotions can’t handle it…sigh) Anyway, he’s been interviewing for jobs all over the country all semester. Over the past few weeks, it has been down to 2: Cintas and HP. The Cintas job was ideal. He would only be working about 45 minutes away and although starting out he would be doing all of the grunt work and not getting paid much, all of this was part of a management training program and after 2 years, he’d be guaranteed a management position. He made it through every single round of interviews and on Thursday, we even headed to Atlanta for him to meet with the VP of the company. At the time, we thought he had it in the bag and we didn’t think twice about what we’d do if he didn’t get this.
On the way home from Atlanta, he got a phone call from HP. He had briefly spoken with them at a career fair a while back (when they said they weren’t hiring) and a few weeks later, he received a phone call from them wanting to set up a phone interview. Like Cintas, he went through at least 4 interviews with them, but he was mainly doing it just for the interview experience and because the job was not at all in his field, he never thought he would get it. Then, as I mentioned before, the phone rang on our way home from Atlanta. We had to turn off our music (that was keeping us awake…we had left T-town at 3:30 that morning) and I could hear the person on the other line say, “Hi Alex…this is (insert name here) from HP. We would like to offer you the job here at HP.” Yes, we should have been jumping for joy because on paper…this job is AMAZING, but it did have one huge fall back (I’ll get to that in a minute) and Alex (and I) had our hearts set on the Cintas job. We kind of joked about him taking this position and prayed that Cintas would come through so he wouldn’t have to take his “second choice”.
We get home and Alex drops me off at my apartment. I head in and open my laptop to check my e-mail. I type in gmail and his e-mail pops up (he had been using it the night before and apparently we never logged him out). There was the e-mail from Cintas HR and it had already been read. I know I am a horrible girlfriend for doing this, but I had to know so I clicked on the e-mail and I only had to read the first few words to know… “We regret to inform you…”. Can I tell you how much I hate that phrase? I also knew that this meant that he would probably take the HP job and I just started crying. I know you’re thinking, “your boyfriend just got an awesome job, why on earth are you crying?”, but remember that “fall back” I mentioned earlier….yes it is a biggie. The HP job is in Conway, Arkansas.
In case you still don’t understand why I’m upset, here is the problem: The boy that I’ve lived within 20 minutes of the past 8 years that I’ve known him, is moving over 7 hours away.
Even though I talked to Alex several times over the phone that evening, he had not told me that he had not gotten the Cintas job. I could hear it in his voice though…and I was afraid to mention that I knew so every time he called, I put on my best bubbly Maegan voice and went on with the conversation. At the time I was getting my brother packed up to head home, but Alex had asked me to come over when my brother left and that is exactly what I did. I cried the whole five minute ride there thinking about how I wouldn’t be able to just hop in the car and head over to his house, which only brought the whole flood of “I’ll miss…” thoughts.
When I got there, I composed myself, wiped the mascara that was literally streaming down my face and went in to see him. His friend was over, but left soon after I got there. We sat in silence for a few minutes and I knew he was trying to find the words to tell me. All he got out was “Baby…” and I blurted out “I know…” and of course lost it again. Can I insert how much I hate crying in front of guys, especially when it has to do with the relationship? I don’t mind being a softie and crying over sappy scenes or sweet moments, but I hate looking needy or dependent. Apparently I didn’t care that evening because as soon as I would compose myself and wipe the mascara off my face, I would start crying again.
Source
This is about what I looked like the entire evening, but not quite this elegant…more of a hot mess!
I just kept thinking of all the little things I would miss which just brought on more tears. I know he felt horrible because he HATES when I cry and he just kept saying I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I felt even worse because I knew I was making it harder on him to take this position and I didn’t want to be the one to keep him from this awesome opportunity.
So, where does my decision part of this come in? Well, obviously we had to have the “what are we doing here?” chat. With him being over 7 hours away, the relationship has definitely lost the “convenience” factor. It took me the rest of that evening and probably most of the next day to figure out what I wanted to do about it. I cried and prayed and cried some more until I finally decided it would be best if we broke up and since I knew he wouldn’t do it, I decided I would. I’m 0/2 in the long distance relationship department and these were in the same state, so I wasn’t sure if I could go through this again…especially since it had no “end date”.
When I went over to his house that evening, I just flat out told him I couldn’t do it and that we needed to break up. I told him I didn’t want to make him feel bad about taking the job, and I knew he would throw me in as a factor for his decision if I didn’t get out. However, he just flat out said “Nope, you are not breaking up with me because we are going to make this work.” No matter how hard I tried to convince him otherwise, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
So, we’re going to try this long distance thing out. He has officially accepted the job, rented the apartment, and has started boxing everything up. Yes, there have been a few tears shed over the holiday break, but I’ve had lots of distractions with all the holiday festivities. When I get back to Tuscaloosa…it will probably be a different story. I have no idea how this is going to work, but since this is Alex’s decision…I’m going to step out of my “controller” shoes and let him handle it.
Hopefully I can suck it up and just deal with it soon (and you guys don’t have to read any more sappy depressing posts), but just wanted to let you guys in on what has been going on and warn you that I may not be myself for a bit.
Thanks for all of the support you have sent already…I’m so blessed to have such amazing friends!
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I hope to be back to normal blogging soon! :)
Lots of love,
Maegan
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