Day 18, Crisis Averted

After figuring out what was on my mind yesterday, I, as I do, immediately spilled my brain to the Greek - as he was waking up.

It sounded, even to me, that it was the prelude to we're gonna split up because even I thought that could be the case (albeit, not what I wanted).

How could I have my single self independence and be in a relationship? But what it came down to was just that that was/is what I need.

I need to know I can turn off this relationship and be a sexless mature single minded 47 year old woman that meanders around her life: rocks her job,  focuses on her family, and chills with friends.

Then, I can have those times where I am a romantic with my lover and we have endless sex, ride bikes that end in picnics, movies nights, and on and on.... I just need to be able to turn this particular one off for, I don't know, a week or so at a time? Maybe?

I need the Greek to know that this is a need and want of mine should we continue, and that I haven't been voicing it. I've just been being scared that I'm losing it.

Being in a romantic journey with him is such a gift, but I can't keep up with it. I'm someone different when I'm with him, and I enjoy it, but it's not my default and it takes some effort. Some of that effort is, somehow, being in a younger than my version of young, mind. It's exhausting.

A lot of the above, most likelyish, turns out to be more in my mind:  what I think I have to keep up with. And perhaps allowing an official version of turning off the romantic self will help me see that it is the same as what we have now and that I've just been in my head about how I don't actually have the default version of me on hand. And that weird thought that, if I let my guard down and relax in myself, he will see me as old? I think I think that, and perhaps he already sees that and loves me still.

I suppose we'll see.

We talked about all of this and he was/is on the same page. He also wants his independence and wants to see me feel free and happy. So, we'll go with this for now.

Having that conversation has allowed me to relax and be present on our trip. I was really getting silently afraid of trying to keep up with a version of myself that I thought I had to be, and that we were moving into a couple, whatever that means.

I just want us to be ourselves. I don't want to write a story of who we are. I just want to be me.

I want to contribute to his happiness without being responsible for it, which is where, for whatever reason, I was feeling we were headed.

And I suppose a big part of that comes from my time with my husband, where I wholly accepted responsibility for his happiness. I tried, time and time again, to raise him up and be his bridge to the world, and I don't want that. Luckily, this is truly something that the Greek does not need from me in the slightest.

I feel better and more engaged. I feel promise for when we get home. I feel free. Oh, thank god I feel free.

Six days in La Maddalena, here I come.