Relationship goals

I'm currently lying on my bed, texting a friend from school who's going to take her comprehensive exam on Tuesday. Haven't spoken to her in like a month, and before that, maybe another month, and before that, a few months. Not since graduation, I guess.

I guess I'm in the real world now, though it often feels unreal to me. Like, I'm not ready, I mean. This isn't what I wanted.

What I wanted to do was join the Peace Corps right after graduating. But I didn't do it. I met someone. I couldn't leave her.

I often ask myself, are you with her because you are happier with her? Or are you with her because you're too afraid to end things, afraid of the pain you'll cause her? I still don't know the answer, to be honest. Each day makes the answer more pertinent, lengthens the inevitable end or perhaps not, and I just don't know, really, if I'm happy anymore.

Wanting her to change, be nicer to be, be kinder to herself, embrace the world and relax her anxieties because they hurt me just as they hurt her. Delusion and expectation -- these two stand-in for hope; maybe they are hope, and always have been.

To contrast our worldviews is to play into the binary of half-full, half-empty. My assumptions make things safe; hers require her to guard herself.

I think I'd be happier broken up with her, but I'm happier not to break up with her. Another paradox, another expectation eating it's own tail.

Am I happy?

Do I want this?

I stood looking out into my future and I chose to stay here. There's no regret, no blame. But -- there's always a "but." But will I be okay? In this difference assumption, in this difference expectation?

I have not really planned my life, and maybe because of that, I haven't really kept it safe. I think the fire is in danger of going out. And I'm hoping that this relationship is going to help me protect it.