This past weekend was an emotional one. For starters, helping Jessica under the streetcar, but for other reasons too; I am currently on my way to Norway alone. Alone with the seat next to me empty. It’s weird though, as I have a sense of sadness for myself I’m alone, but also a huge amount of relief that A. is not next to me.

It’s been a turbulent (pun! as I’m on a plane typing this) past few months, and at thirty two years old I have a deep sense of sadness that I stayed in such a shitty relationship so long. I suppose it’s because of this Norway trip; the trip we planned and booked way too early. The trip that stopped me from walking running weeks ago.

He treated me terribly. And although there are moments over the past few months I definitely think I could have handled things better (and will try to learn from for the future) at the end of the day it was awful. You hear communication is key, but I had never realized just how important. This past one actually highlighted how good it was in my previous relationships. Because this one? In this one we were so so misaligned. He’d go three days without responding to several messages from me. And then when I spoke to him about it, he’d make me somehow apologize. Umm, what? He’d never really made me feel special or wanted. And weird small things would happen over and over again; like when I accidentally forgot concert tickets and felt awful about it, he looked at me and said, I’m going to make you feel as bad as I possibly can. And he did.

I thought a lot of it was because of the distance, but then when I arrived in Toronto nothing changed. Last Saturday he was supposed to come over for dinner at 5pm. I cleaned and curled my hair and waited and waited. I texted, but nothing, and then eventually called. When I called instead of hitting “no” on his phone, he accidentally hit “yes,” and put the phone back in his pocket. I foolishly had previously thought he had lost track of time at work, but then I heard the music and girls and how drunk he was. I listened in for 8 minutes to him drunkly chatting to girls. While waiting for him on my couch. He never showed up that night.

When I confronted him the next day (in the name of Norway… and hope!) I told him I honestly wasn’t sure he was a good person. He’d not shown up (verbally and in person) to critical moments over the past few months, and that wasn’t good enough for me. I told him to step up, or that’s it. He told me he’d step up, but then a mere eight hours before my flight to Norway took off he said he wasn’t going to come. Cool, cool, thanks for waiting to so long to tell me. But along with the sudden shock of going alone, relief, I had a lot of relief.

You hear love is patient and love is kind, and I’ve come to realize that that’s really the bottom line. When you decide to sync your life up with someone else’s if you’re both kind and patient it translates into nearly everything else.

(I started this post on the plane, so please forgive the past/current tenses changing)

Then my first night in Norway I met Sean. We crossed paths in an airbnb within my first few hours in Norway, and took a walk together as we were heading the same way. The walk turned into three days and a hop, skip and jump to Stockholm. I’ll save my Sean adventure for another post, but my goodness, it was amazing. It reminded me of what I should expect, how I should feel, how I should laugh (not cry!), and how it should all be easy. (It also showed me that one should never envy couples! :) As we held hands and kissed in the old streets of Stockholm, and laughed and sat for hours on patios… but we had just met a few days before! So, you never know!)

Sean headed back to the States today, and I flew back to Norway. Tomorrow I set off down the coast of Norway to explore the fjords alone. I’m excited, and ready, and happy for time to tick on and be on this adventure alone… as apposed to with the wrong person.

When life throws you a rotten lemon, find another sweet one.