Over.

Alex and I broke up tonight.

It's been weighing on my heart lately that we weren't really moving in the same direction, that we weren't growing as a couple. I felt like that was just my own doubt slipping in, my own negative chatter in my head. But the longer and harder I looked at things, the more apparent that it became that it was completely true.

And that hurts. The weight of that truth is so oppressively painful. The decision to end things now, while we both still have a chance at walking away more intact than if we broke up later down the road, was so hard. So, so hard. And part of me feels like I have given up.

I'm still questioning whether I made the right decision, even though I know deep down that it couldn't have really worked -- that there were very real factors working against us that were beyond the 'long distance' element, and that they were things that, try as we might, couldn't be helped.

I spent 3 1/2 years in a relationship before this that ended (for me) so seamlessly, painlessly -- but only because we had been falling apart for so long, had been in a bad place for months. Alex did nothing wrong, things were fine, but I still haven't been happy with 'us' for a long time and this still feels like such a shock.

I didn't think we'd split up today, it wasn't on my radar. It just kind of happened. And as painful as it is now, I still feel like this is the calm before the storm.