Trials & Turmoil: Part 1 - Parting Ways

Greetings, netizens. It's been a while. A really, really long while.

It's been a week since I finished what could possibly be the last time I will be sitting for finals. Yes people, it won't be soon before long until I can officially call myself a graduate. Fingers crossed that I passed all my subjects last term, though - results won't be out till mid-November.

The past couple of months have been pretty much a blur for me. What with me trying to keep up with my studies whilst maintaining a romantic relationship. Believe me, the former was much less of a problem than the latter. Needless to say, my relationship with Andrew ended on mutual terms. I'd been hinting at it for a few weeks prior to our split, but neither of us had the balls to even begin to say anything about it. We did try to make it work, we really did - our efforts proved to be in vain.

We had become restless, getting fired up over the littlest of problems or misunderstandings, until I took matters into my own hands. Finally on one fine day, I sat down with him and discussed what our relationship had become, over drinks at a campus cafe. I remember it was 10am, sipping on a bottle of fizzy lemony goodness, that is Schweppes - much healthy, eh?

Quite literally, we sat for a good hour discussing how our relationship had evolved, and (at the time) the current nature of it. I can't for the life of me remember what the content of that discussion was - all I know is that we ultimately drew a conclusion that our relationship would have been suitable if we were in our 40's. The unfortunate thing was we are but only in our early 20's.

"I want to see other people."
"You deserve better."

...I just never thought those words would fall from our mouths.

I remember thinking at the point in time that deep down we still wanted each other. The very root of the problem was we just didn't know how to handle each other anymore. Considering that I'd been the one actively trying to make things work (and have gotten sick and tired of it), and he had to rush off to work at 11am, I let him decide the fate of our relationship by the end of the day.

He finished work around 7:45pm that day, close to 8pm.

"Thank you for the past year," was all he said to me.

I knew then that that was it. We were parting ways, for good.

We only had ourselves to blame. It took us a whole year to realise we weren't really right for each other. At least not anymore. We might have been compatible when we first started, but what I've learnt from others is that over time people can change. That's how the walls of a relationship, built over time, can be torn down by a metaphorical wrecking ball. Now I'm totally resisting the urge to belt out Miley Cyrus' song "Wrecking Ball" in the middle of the night.

The good thing that came out of all this is that I'm still on good terms with Andrew - we just reverted to our old ways, that is prior to the start of our romantic relationship. I never thought I could get along swell with an ex, and that things could still be fine and dandy after a break up.