Good Mourning Rachael: Part 3

After a few months of being together, things got a little bumpy. While I tend to lead a carefree and easy life, Rachael was working six days a week, and putting in a lot of effort to make sure all the ends met up at the end of the month. On top of that, she was now putting up with my dumb ass eight or more hours a day. All of this added up to one stressed out monkey who had been uncharacteristically unhappy. For me this was just a hurdle that we'd get over together and continue on our way. After all, her problems were now my problems, and if there's one thing I can do in this world it's problem solve. I saw it all as a speed bump on our road to forever. Unfortunately, as I often do, I underestimated what was really going on.

I did my best to assist with the small things. I tried to help with the laundry, and when she refused, I went and found a laundry service. I sent flowers to her work, and when she accidentally spilled wine on her carpet, I rushed out to find an appropriate cleaner. It wasn't much, but she was a tough person to take care of. I'd screwed up before in my life by not putting enough effort in. This time, I wasn't letting that happen.

One day Rachael left on a trip to visit her sister in Chicago. There had been a little emotional distance between us, and I hoped that the physical distance would make her miss me and maybe bring back the good times. I also thought that a little time away from every day life would do her some good. I dropped Rachael off at the airport. What I didn't realize at the time was that I was saying goodbye to my girlfriend Rachael. The girl who came back was just my friend.

Stress and responsibilities had overwhelmed the girl that I cared so much for, and in the end something had to give. In this case, I was that something.

And just like that, the girl who this very blog brought to my door and I were no longer a couple. While the story of how we met was, in my opinion, quite remarkable, the story of how we parted was typical in most regards. There were a few attempts at reconciliation, a few distraught late night calls, and a few sappy emails. In the end though it wasn't enough, and one day she was just gone.

Were you expecting a better ending? Sorry about that. The extra U in the title wasn't because I was feeling particularly British or anything.

When you write a blog that's basically a sitcom representation of your life, you tend to leave the bad things out and therefore some stories never get their proper ending. The truth is that sometimes Ross and Rachel just don't end up together. But that doesn't mean it's the end of the world.

For me, this blog is a lot about perspective. My people, the nerds, tend to be an overly emotional and sad lot. That's a little bit of self fulfilling prophecy. It's probably easy to see this as a sad tale of the nerd who didn't get the girl, but you'll notice that a solid two thirds(Or more) of the story are about how much I truly cared for her(And still do). I've spent my whole life wanting to spend a decent portion of it alone, so to enjoy someone's company that much was honestly groundbreaking for me. While the story itself doesn't have a perfect ending, there are really a lot of positives to take away.

So, hopefully I didn't bum anyone out. I've already had two people tell me this story was utterly depressing, and I hadn't even gotten to the bad part yet. Don't worry about me, I don't write about things until I'm cool with them. There's no need to take my shoelaces away.