Un Choose

It’s time to give him his thirty minutes. I definitely didn’t yesterday. I hit the ground running and never stopped until after three this morning. I was going to go for two nights in a row, but I don’t think I have it in me. Especially with an early flight tomorrow. We’ll see.
I did have one thought yesterday. Not especially deep or new by anyone’s standards, but one that I hadn’t been able to really grasp until yesterday. Honestly, I’m not really sure how much I believe it—one of those things that could just be bullshit or one of the lies we tell ourselves.
I remember very clearly the day I decided he would be the one I’d spend my life with. Granted, I didn’t choose to love him, but I did decide, CHOOSE, that I would accept him fully, every aspect of him. I talked about it before. We’d been together about a year. Long enough that I was figuring out what our everyday life together would be like. The things that were wonderful, the things that weren’t. You know, nothing huge, just some small things—things that you simply have to deal with when you’re with someone who’s not identical to you. I asked myself if any of those things were deal-breakers. Which life would be better, with him and with those small negative things or without him and those things. In every case, it was a resounding, With Him. I wanted him. I chose him. I chose that I would share my life with him, accept those imperfections, as he would accept mine. From that day on, those things, mostly, lost their importance. They quit driving me crazy and just became aspects of the man I loved and that was that. The point is: I Chose. Chose him forever.
Obviously, he chose something else.
What hit me was this: If I could choose him, not only feel love for him but choose to truly love him, then it might be possible to choose not to love him anymore. Or at least choose to not spend my life with him. I know that sounds stupid. It’s not like it’s an option to spend my life with him. However, once I made that choice, it was made. It wasn’t based on any condition or if’s or then’s. Even when he left, even now, two years later, that choice stays. Just because he’s gone doesn’t change that I chose him. My soul/heart/whatever is married to an absent person. Married to someone who isn’t. I haven’t been able to alter that emotion/fact/aspect within myself. I didn’t know how it would go away, and so far, it hasn’t. So, in the theme of choosing to live life, it hit me that maybe I can choose to not give him my life (it’s not like he was asking for it anymore, but once I gave it, I wasn’t sure how to get it back—maybe I’m a really bad STD, once you got me, you got me, want me or not…), choose to not choose him.
Maybe there’s not an action that needs to go along with that, as far as steps to take. Maybe it’s simply being aware of it and choosing it intentionally. In essence, though not in name, nor in the planning, maybe that’s the symbolism of this entire trip. Not only what I choose (life, laughter, living) but also what I will no longer choose.
Okay. Thirty minutes are done. Time to live.