What goes around....

Comes around. Some very sage advice that my father gave to me when I was running into popularity issues in middle school was the following: "What you are doing is great. It's the others whom are unable to follow what you are doing. Keep doing what you're doing and eventually they'll come back around."

That statement was definitely true. When high school came around, I was able to leave my old crowd behind as I went to a magnet high school in our school district and not the usual neighborhood high school that the other kids I knew went to. In fact, they had a much rougher time during those years. Out of 6 kids in my neighborhood, only 2 of us went to the magnet high school, the other 4 went to the neighborhood high school and they all ended up dropping out at some point or another.

My friend and I ended up fine in high school. It gave us an opportunity to remake our images, to branch out and grow into ourselves. Same has been going on recently in my dating environment.

Before I was married, I was always in a long term relationship. I guess it was due to the fact that I remembered subconsciously about my parents divorce when I was a child, and I didn't want to see another relationsip fail. But different situations and different people involved. Break-ups are like the world ending when your young. You always think you've "found the one", that your love will be eternal. However, realistically this isn't true.

Everyone grows and evolves over time. Personalities change based on influences and experiences in our lives. It's natural for people's paths to converge and split, sometimes to remesh at a future date. Such is the case with AL.

AL contacted me yesterday wanting to do something that night. Explicitly she wanted me to come meet her at the Timbers game. I knew that LF would be there, as would more than likely SR. A pretty big roll of the dice if they saw me there with AL. More than likely I'd be left in the dust by all 3 had I followed through with that plan of meeting AL. But I was going to chance it... The Timbers game would have a few thousand people there, I could hang low and hope I don't get noticed too much.

But plans changed. I drove down there and literally drove around for 1/2 an hour looking for parking near the stadium, but to no avail. I called AL and let her know (this was already half way through the first half of the game) about the situation, and to give me a call after the game and we'd meet up then. We did end up meeting at Henry's for dinner. It was nice, as it usually is. Good food, they had a few games on the TV's, and good eye candy at that restaurant. AL and I have always had a good communication path, we're both more direct when we get into conversations on topics, etc. I let her know about some of the stresses in my life that have been weighing on me, moving, my parents, work, etc. I didn't tell her about the others though.

We spent a few hours together just talking about our situation, why she finally came back around (she states that when we first went out, she wasn't ready for it. She didn't really realize what she had the chance for back then. Also she couldn't understand why I would spend time with her now.) I told her that everyone takes a different path through life, some have more lessons to learn than others, some are still finding out their true selves. Needless to say, we clicked. It may turn interesting there. What goes around, comes back around in time.

While I was writing this entry, a message came in from a social networking site letting me know that SR had just modified her "status". It's been changed to "SR is moving on." Since I've had scarce interactions with SR during this past month or so, except for just last week, it can basically mean only one thing. She's finally moved on from me. Seems like I took the easy road on this one, bury my head in the sand, ignore it and hope it goes away. Guess it is with her, she's finally "moving on" from me.