Follow Your Dreams or Follow Your Heart?

Giving Up on a Five Year Relationship to Follow My Dreams.

Ok, I'm not really "giving up," but that's the word I'm going with.

It was the week of finals, my first semester as a freshman in a university was coming to an end.

Like the typical student right before my Biology final I was hard at work... playing pool. A few of my classmates and I thought it was better to unwind a bit instead of cramming some last minute knowledge into our heads we weren't really going to remember anyway.

The great thing about that class? The test was multiple choice.

As I stood against the pool table in typical romantic fashion my eyes saw a boy sitting with his own group of friends. He threw his head back in laughter at some joke I didn't hear and my eyes only every looked away from him to quickly make a shot in a game I no longer cared about.

Like a true crush-stricken teenager I did exactly as you would think.

I stared at him...

Smiled through my lashes...

Then left when it was time for my final.

After my test we made our way back to the campus game room, but this time for the video game section and lo and behold my blue eyed beauty was there.

It didn't take much longer of my staring for him to come up and ask my friend and I to abandon our shooting game and join him in a game of cards.

From there I'd like to say it was happily ever-after, but it wasn't or this article wouldn't be here.

Five years later we are still together, but through personal issues on both ends... we both dropped out of university and took on full time jobs. However, while maintaining my 45 hours a week underpaid job I'll have my degree by the end of this year.

I've always been a dreamer, I've dreamed of writing and traveling and... living short terms all over the world. I've always known when I finished my degree I was going to reward myself by taking off and my first stop? Seattle.

However, my Boston based beauty... is content where he is. At 26 years old he lives in a housing complex with his parents and younger sister while working a full time sales job at a big blue electronics store.

He dreams of practicing local real estate, however doesn't have the ambition to make time for the classes.

I love him.

I love him.

I love him.

There isn't a bit of doubt in my heart about that. There's always the picture in my head of the most beautiful Fall wedding. The leaves. The crisp air. Halloween! (Yes, I've dreamed of a Salem Wedding)

My issue?

Five years of no personal growth.

We fell in love and lost sight of our goals. We threw ourselves into jobs and unfortunately only one of us has a savings account... and I've been saving.

To move...

And he doesn't want to come with me.

I'm not taking about asking him to uproot everything and run away to the other side of the country with me forever, only short term. A three-month lease max. Just to experience a new part of the world.

I'm sure my heart would break in two if we were to split, but I feel by leaving him to live my dreams is in a sense giving up on our relationship and forcing him into a long-distance option.

I would be happy to stay by his side forever, but I would never be living my dream.

Which may not even work out so well in the end. I may hate it. I may become violently homesick a week into my lease.

But...

I know I owe it to myself to try, but do I owe it to him to stay?

But, I can't let anything hold me back from trying.

If I stay because of my love for him where will my love be if and when I start to regret my decision and blame it on his unwillingness to support me.

We would fail anyway, but maybe much further down the road when separating becomes a bit harder than just splitting ways.

Divorce. Children.

It would no longer just be us getting hurt, friends and families would then be even more invested into us.

I have to try and live my dream.

And hope...

And Hope...

Our love will get us through the distance, though the separation and doubts.