Career vs. Family

Nothing is worst than taking a break.  Sure, it's healthy.  Sure, we probably need it.  But staring at my phone every five seconds hoping he'll text me or call me and forgive me isn't a healthy feeling.

So instead I am going to write about my current life dilemma (which is so totally a first world problem).

Anyway, here I am.  Junior year of college, and flying high with a great GPA, a lot of research experience, several connections to people in my department as well as government agencies, and yearning to be a Professor at a research-based institution.

This path isn't an easy one.  First off, I would have to go and spend 4-5 years of my life at a school that ISN'T the one I am currently at (let's just call it the U of X) and study and learn vicariously, and then I would go get my post doc somewhere else, and THEN I would try to find a faculty position at a school, really any school, that would accept me.

My boyfriend, on the other hand, has his dreams set-up right where we are.  Right in the LAST place that I could go to graduate school if I wanted to pursue my own dreams.  I thought we could figure something out.. like I would stay here for my masters until he finished his masters and then we could go somewhere else to be together where I would get my Ph.D.  But he sees my dream as something that would take away from his own, and in many ways I agree.  Having to move around with me as I pursue my dream would cause him to have to restart his career over and over again until I was finally settled down somewhere.  And he doesn't want to do that.

As I am writing this, I can hear people thinking in their heads, "Jeez lady, you're both young.  Your dream should take precedence over anything else.  You'll find someone else."  And you know what? That's what he told me.  I mean he wants it to work out too, but he says that I can't be devastated if it doesn't.  And this just makes me feel like I care MORE which is even more frustrating because I always feel like I am more emotionally invested in a relationship than the person I am dating.

J-E-A-L-O-U-S-Y

Dear Blog-Readers.... If there ever are any of you.

Well I am here to talk to you all about love, because damn I am one EMOTIONAL woman!  One of these days I will talk about PMS because that is one HECK of a roller coaster.

Anyway, I have dated three main men in my life.  The first I classify as a sturdy bf, but he was never interested in going out which made our dates a total suhnoozer :/ ALSO he didn't want kids and I did which frankly is a dealbreaker.

The next fish I pulled from the sea was sooo much more in love with work and school than he ever could be with me... which is probably why our relationship never really took off.  Ending only one and a half months in!  Because to be honest, sometimes after you get past the romantic, spontaneous honeymoon part of the relationship you realize, "Jeez, this guys cool and all, but we are going NOWHERE.  And our values do NOT match up at all."  So the relationship goes thpppt.

Lastly, where I am currently (:  Happy as can beeee, with our own issues of course.  But this relationship is different, because we work through things and actually grow as a couple.  But the happy part is not what I wanted to discuss with you all.  I am actually here to talk to you about...

J-E-A-L-O-U-S-Y

An eight letter word that defines everything that is wrong about me and my relationships and my actions.  Some people get angry, some people are nagging, and some people are jealous.  

Now don't get me wrong, I know that jealousy is wrong.  I know only bad things come out of it.  But knowing all this doesn't mean that jealousy just goes away... it means that I suppress it, and when it comes out after weeks of bottling it up it is not pretty.  

To be honest, our relationship definitely had it's low points in the beginning.  Like very, very low, almost breaking up multiple times low.  But we tumbled on through, each time tearing a little bit at our trust but at the same time building a relationship that was real and wasn't founded on the intense happiness of a new relationship.

But now every time my boyfriend is close to a female or meets his new female coworkers, it instantly sends up a red flag for me.  "What if he likes her more?" "What if she tries to come on to him?" "What if she knows I exist but wants to steal him away?" "What if she is more fun than I am and he gets bored of our relationship?"

So I act up.  I try to be more sexy, more spontaneous, and plan more dates and things for us to do together.  But this also makes me moody and snap more like he's already acted on something that he hasn't.  Like these scenario's I've created in my head have already happened, and I'm trying to forgive him for something that he hasn't actually done.

Do you see my dilemma? I'm not looking for sympathy.  In fact, my boyfriend deserves sympathy.  The last time I told him how I was feeling, he told me that he was just disappointed, not angry.

I guess... this blog is a place for me to vent my feelings.  Like maybe if I can vent and steam onto here I won't ever, ever bring it up to my boyfriend.  I just feel so... helpless when it comes to these feelings.  I don't want to feel them.  And I don't want to lose my boyfriend.  But it seems that I may just do exactly that if I can't learn to control my emotions better.