Doing What You Know

When it was over, there was relief. Not just because the drama had stopped, but because I knew what to do next.

I know how to grieve.

I know the steps, I know the feelings, I know the score (literally, I still have all my GPYP playlists). I looked down the tunnel of that process with a feeling of familiarity and comfort, and the knowledge that I knew how to handle it.

Grieving the breakup was the easy part. The hard part was making the break in the first place.

And I've realised that there's a pattern there. In four of my last five relationships I hung on for months after I knew it wasn't going to work out. In each case, it took a single defining moment to call it quits. In this case, it was a moment where I was no longer angry but just utterly fed up and tired, and so was he. Before that - and before the defining moments in the other relationships - I just couldn't bring myself to step up and break it off. And I don't know why.

After all I've learned, why do I still commit completely to things before I know if they're viable, and then cling so tenaciously when it turns out that they're not?

I wasn't looking for a relationship when I came over here ... in fact I was intending to be a free spirit and perhaps have a few casual partners, much like my life in the last couple of months before I left Perth. And yet I dived back into an absolutely classic dysfunctional Christine relationship the moment one became available.

I've learned better and I was looking for something else, and yet I still grabbed it when it came along.

Clearly I still have a lot of work to do.