And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

The talking heads said it best...how did I get here? and I ask myself How DID I get here?! This is not my beautiful house. Where is that large automobile?

Minutes turn to days, and days into years and one day we wake up from the fog and ask ourselves "how did we get here?" Sometimes the answer is as simple as, "I must have been asleep at the wheel" or "well it wasn't that bad" or "things could always change" or "it hasn't been that long". But one thing I've learned, and although it has taken me a long time to learn it...the more things change...the more they stay the same.

People don't change. We are who we are. Our idiosyncrasies, our pet peeves, the way we fold our t-shirts and towels, these things don't change. Our parenting techniques, whether we say to-ma-to or tah-ma-to these stay the same. In essence the reasons some relationships just don't work out will remain the same reasons, regardless of effort. The reasons to break up the first time remain the same reasons to break up a second and a third time and so on and so on until your head spins and wonders "how did I get here?"

I guess as much as we say it's all about progress, at the root of us we remain the same. I am the same girl who competed in science fairs, who thought her father was amazing, that played the french horn for oh so many years and never mastered it. I am me. I am lazy (a bit) I am giving (too much) I am loving (with all my heart) I am expressive (my heart is on my sleeve I am competitive (sports, grades, promotions). I am as Meyer Briggs expressed an extrovert, intuitive feeling perceptive personality. I was that in high school, college, first job and even now. We remain the same unless challenged in extraordinary and unpredicted ways. If the status quo works, why change...I think I need to change (a bit)

To think back about the energy I spent trying to make a past relationship work, I sigh and truly wonder why, why did I work so hard? I knew what the eventual outcome would be and yet, for all that I tried, the neuroses remained, the inflexibility and unwillingness to adapt to new situations remained regardless of his pleas and promises of change. The writing is and has been on the wall for almost a year now and despite a series of renewed and invigorated attempts to "make it work" to "try harder" we remain well...to quote the talking heads again...same as it ever was.

I've moved on. He says too fast. I say I've been expecting the shoe to drop for months that he was already gone. He calls and cries. He apologizes and says he can change but I've heard it before and I don't want to wake up another year from now asking myself "My God, what have I done".

I've put him behind me. I am not only asking myself how did I get here but where do I go from here? The fear of being alone and attempting life by myself is gone. I know that there are adventures waiting for me and just knowing that they exist will help me find my way.

So ask yourself "How did I get here?" and hopefully, if things are going right, you be able to say because this is where I want to be.