Rainy Days and Mondays...

...always get me down.

Then there days like today, Monday AND rainy. It's hard not to feel a little blue.

It doesn't help that Adam and I broke up last night.

I'm okay, really.

I'm sad, of course. Very, very sad. But relieved, too. I've been so unhappy; it was time to end our relationship. Yes, we maybe could have worked things out, but as I thought more about it last night, I realized that it would have probably only been a temporary fix and we'd end up back in this spot at a later date. Fortunately, I feel like we ended things mutually and amicably.

That's why I'm sad. Adam became one of my best and closest friends. Whenever something happened in my life, I immediately thought about telling him. I trusted him enough to truly be myself, even my sometimes unpleasant self. He made me laugh when I was feeling blue and understood me when I needed to feel understood. He's a good man and I'll always love him.

Cardine asked me if I regretted giving a relationship with Adam a second chance. No, I don't. Not at all. He still ended up not being the man for me, but it was worth figuring that out again. There are several reasons we aren't compatible, but they aren't important now. Here are the reasons I'm glad Adam and I gave it a go a second time:

1. I never believed I could love a man. I learned that I can. Good to know. Very good.

2. I also never believed that I could trust a man. Don't get me wrong, I know very many wonderful men that I believe to be very trustworthy. I just never thought I could trust a man to be honest with me, to not cheat on me, to mean it when he said nice things to me, to really love me. I trusted Adam. And, he still hasn't given me a reason to not trust him.

3. At one point in our relationship, I actually could picture spending the rest of my life with him. This is MONUMENTAL!! Marriage has never been something I could see happening for me. I was no longer violently opposed to the idea of getting married, but I wasn't actually wanting it. I liked being single. Now, I realize that being in a relationship is kind of nice and someday, when the timing and man are right, I can see myself being in an eternal relationship.

4. Practice. I realized lately that I've spent 11 of the last 12 years being not in a relationship (juliespeak for "being single"). No wonder I'm better at being single than being with someone! So, this was good practice. Not that I thought of it as practice at the time, I was really committed to the relationship. However, now that it's over, I can see what I did that was good and what I did that wasn't so good. Hmmm. This isn't coming out right. Adam, if you ever read this, I hope you know what I mean. You probably do. You always did.

5. Firefly and Good Omens. He introduced me to the enjoyable series Firefly and the absolutely delightful book Good Omens. In fact, he gave me the DVDs for the series AND the book! Isn't he nice?

6. Love and friendship. It's always nice when someone loves you and thinks you're special. And, it's nice to love someone else. I do believe that he really loved me and I certainly loved him. Like I mentioned earlier, we became very good friends and I'll cherish that friendship forever, even though we'll never be able to be such good friends again. That's the truly horrible part of ending a relationship. Understandable, but sad.

So, it's over, but it's been quite a ride. Ups and downs, twists and turns. I stuck with it to the end of the ride, and I'm proud of myself. And I had a lot of fun.

Adam, thank you. For everything.