Monday, November 10, 2008

My ex is engaged

After spending the entire weekend with the new girl, I rolled out of bed Sunday afternoon and checked facebook. Right at the top of the newsfeed was a picture of my college girlfriend and a guy who was a year ahead of us at school that we were friends with. She looked like she'd just been crying, he was feeding her cake, and she had a diamond ring on her finger.

Apparently they'd been dating for months, and all my friends thought I would freak out if they told me, which of course I didn't do when I found out. Even though my ex and I were together for three and a half years, I'm not the jealous type. After I broke up with her a semester before we graduated I only hoped she'd be happy, so hopefully she will be now.

It was just kind of a mind blowing experience for me though. I had to pretend not to react long enough to walk the new girl down to her car, and then I was able to say "holy shit..." and think it over.

I had broken up with her because the end of college was coming up, and it was looking like we were going in very different directions (and to different coasts). Essentially my choices were to to either break up or buy an engagement ring and hope we could deal with the distance when I went to CA and she went to law school. I was 21 years old, and not ready to get engaged, so we broke up. Now it looks like she was in a similar situation with this guy as law school was ending. I'm not sure what his situation is, but it appears he is able to go with her after she graduates from law school.

Breaking her heart was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and I wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to forgive me. I know the cliche is that I should be weird and inapproriately jealous or something, but in all honesty I'm really glad that she's happy now.

But at the same time this whole episode reminds me of just how not ready I am for marriage or any of that. I'm young, broke, and trying to break into a very tough industry. I won't be ready to settle down like that until I have some success out here. Trying to fit a marriage into that wouldn't be fair to me or my wife, so I'm happy to delay that for another five years or so. I don't even want to get a dog until I know I'm able to really take care of it. I can't even think about starting a family right now.

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