Moving On

Today I saw the movie Juno with my friends who depart for Canada at the end of the week. It wasn't a bad film, but I went in with pretty high expectations and I was a little disappointed. Still, I'm glad I saw it and it was nice to spend the morning out of the heat and inside an air-conditioned cinema.

This afternoon I caught up with a friend who I haven't seen in quite a few months. Time just gets away sometimes. We talked over a drink at a coffee shop (for once it wasn't a coffee, it was a blended fruit drink) and brought each other up to speed about our lives. I didn't have too much to report as not a great deal has happened in my life since we last spoke but she told me that she had decided to split-up with her boyfriend. This came as a real shock to me as they've been together for years and have lived together for quite a while. She explained to me how she had come to that decision and that it was based mainly on them each wanting different things in life; she said she'd known that they had been growing apart for quite a while but didn't really know what to do about it. Now she knows it's time to move on, for her sake and his.

Unsure of where she'll find the courage to do what she knows is inevitable, she's still trying to figure out how to tell her boyfriend. She doesn't want to hurt him but is there really any way around that? Under any circumstances a break-up is painful, but after living together for years separating must feel like losing a loved one. I suppose, in a way, you are losing a loved one - especially if you're the one being broken up with. It's probably no easier to be the one who decides to leave; you have to live with the fact that you're breaking someone's heart and that would be painful enough in itself. But once you know what you need to do and make the decision to move on, there's no getting away from it: there's going to be pain. For both of you. At least it will only be temporary. And in the months or years to come, maybe the right person will find you and you won't have to go through it all again.