Now bring it back

It's hard to understand any situation without knowing the context, so here's the backlog to mine. It's quite the story, so I'm sure it will end up in installments. As you know by now (I hope you know by now. You mean you don't know what I'm talking about? Just read my older posts and it should start to come together. Don't worry, it'll be fast. There's only like 2 or 3 so far.), I'm trying to figure out me, re: getting over my last breakup/what direction to go in next. The last guy I dated needs a nickname now, because I don't want you to get confused by me talking about more than one ex. We'll call him Wings, referring to both the way we met and an interest of his.

So here's the long story on how this most recent breakup came to be. In order to understand some of the complications with Wings, we have to hop in our hot tub time machine (anybody else thinks this movie looks ridiculous?!) and look at my earlier relationship with the Guy who Loves to Fish. Now the Guy who Loves to Fish really does love to fish more than anything else in life. Not even exaggerating. You want proof? He once told me, "Girl, there were fish before you and there'll be fish after you."

We started dating during my senior year of high school, wound up going to the same college, and that was probably the main reason we dated until partway though my junior year. I'm going to make this potentially long back story as short as possible. Our first year we were together, things were great. But college changes people, and we were going in two different directions. Things never got bad enough to end the relationship, but for a long time (I can now look back and see), it really wasn't good enough to keep going. I think both of us knew we weren't going to end up together, but we were comfortable. My junior year I studied abroad, and we decided to stay together. Like I said, I was comfortable. I didn't struggle with it. Not to mention the men in Paris are definitely not my type. Pointy loafers and man purses? Pants tighter than mine? Thanks but no thanks. I just had a blast traveling and seeing Europe. We would skype and talk online. I would call occasionally with my phone card. But he was busy and throughout the semester got harder to get a hold of. At the beginning of the semester, he made plans to visit me. Awesome, right? Well a month before my trip was over, he visited, and we didn't do much. He was tired and slept a lot, and wasn't eager to do much sightseeing. We found out afterward that he had mono during the trip, so I chalked it up to that.

But.

There's always a but, isn't there? I got home 3 days before Christmas, super pumped to see everyone and was ready to be home again. Then, on Christmas eve, he came over and broke up with me. I was blindsided, heartbroken, and oh yeah- got mono. I asked him if there was someone else. I had an inkling who it would have been (because a girl will ALWAYS know), but he said it was just that we weren't who we used to be. I spent Christmas break on the couch, sick with mono and heartache. I found out that he went on a date with the girl I was worried about Christmas afternoon. Someone I had considered a friend. They had been hanging out during the last semester, and I could tell that if there was anyone I would have to worry about when it came to him, it would be her.

I think more than the breakup hurt, the loss of trust was harder. I had spent the past 4 months in Paris, comfortable with our situation, thinking everything was fine. I came back and someone- who I thought loved me- was just waiting for the day to break up with me so that he could move on. With my friend. Not one of my best friends, thank god, but a friend nonetheless. I was shocked that he could be with someone new so fast. It was clear he had checked out during the semester, but I wasn't there to notice it. I was an ocean away.

I went back to school for spring semester and struggled. I still didn't understand how I didn't see it coming. And how, how could he possibly dating some new girl already? I found out later on that they officially started going out 12 days after he had broken up with me. I was shocked that someone who said they loved you could drop it so fast and seemingly not be affected. I had lost my love and was aching for weeks. Eventually, thanks to wonderful roommates and friends, I kept busy. Kept distracted with school, copious amounts of sleep (thanks in part to the mono), and with doing things with friends. I was still dragging a lot though, and figured a vacation far away from everything was what I needed. Thankfully I met a wonderful girl in Paris who was my pseudo-roomie. She told me I could go stay with her in California, where she lived, for my spring break. I took her up on it the day I found round trip tickets for $170 dollars.

The vacation was just what I needed, but also turned into something a little bit unexpected.