Valentine's Day is very soon. I'm looking forward to it. It should be better than last year because last year Ross kind of chose not to do anything whereas I did. This year he isn't going to do that. I don't care what he plans to do, I just want a romantic evening, like a dinner or something sweet like that. It's been a long time since we had a romantic night.

I wrote him another poem, along with a letter and mailed it to him to be opened on Valentine's Day. I'm thinking about what else I can do for him.

I decided something a while ago. I don't want to live together before marriage. At the very least, I don't want to live together before deciding to marry. If we got engaged, I would move in after setting a date.

I'm not thinking about this right now, but within a year or two, when I'm 24 or 25, I would like to start seriously considering getting married.

I told Ross I wouldn't be agreeing again to live with him. It was a comprimise the first time and there won't be another one. It's got to be a sort of sign that I shouldn't do it. But when he asked last year, I agreed. I was taken aback, I was surprised but in the end I said yes. I said yes because I thought it could work out.

And so I spent the rest of the year thinking about it and getting excited and planning for it both mentally and emotionally.

Now that I'm back to the living alone plan, I'm comfortable. It took a little while to separate "Ross loves me" and "Ross doesn't want to live with me." But once that happened I very easily got used to the idea of living alone. And I'm relunctant to make any further changes.

See, I plan on creating a real home for myself. I don't want to uproot again to live in an uncertain trial-marriage situation that could end. Not when I will have my home set up. If I have a real home then I'm not moving for anything save a concrete commitment.

Besides, if we lived together we wouldn't learn anything. We wouldn't be making long-term goals, planning a family, merging finances and making big decisions together. We'd be sharing a bed in an apartment that has our stuff in it. We'd have our separate lives, short-term goals, separate finances, and it would be understood that either of us could end it with mere words, rather than with legal papers and a long process.

So, I'm just not interested. I know what I want. I am not ready for marriage now but when I am, I want him. I know he's the one for me. I just know. I fell in love with him. And then further along I really loved him, warts and all, as they say; the real him: flaws, quirks, pet peeves and yet seeing him clearly made me love him more than I did when we first fell in love and everything felt easy and perfect.

We're a fit. Not a perfect fit, but pretty damn close in all the ways that really matter. We have similar values, we want the same things: children, a home, to travel; we solve our problems really well.

I have no illusions that being with him would be perfect and we'd always be happy. A marriage can't always run smoothly. Shit happens. Illness, financial problems, fertility issues, parenting dilemas, family crisis', and so forth. But he's the only one I would want to go through the worse with as well as the better.

Living with him wouldn't tell me any of that. I already know his personal habits, which is all you can learn from simply living together, and I'm not about to determine our compatability based on that. We spend nearly every night together, we are incredibly intimate with each other in our daily lives, from the gross bathroom stuff to funky illnesses and problems to embarrasing things that we get to accept from one another but no one else.

Here is what I know, I want to live alone. I want to experience that. I want to make a home for myself and I want to stay there until I'm ready to begin the next phase of my life.

If Ross doesn't know if I'm it or not, then he doesn't know. But if he thinks he can't know unless he lives with me... then I'm probably not it. Actually typing that hurts. But it's true. If you're an adult and you've been with someone for three or four years, you should know if they're the one for you. Whether you're ready to actually make the formal commitment yet or not you should have an idea. After that amount of time you're not going to learn anything more about a person to help make that decision. You know his or her personality, values, goals, hopes and dreams, habits, quirks, annoyances, etc.

So, yeah... I'm long-winded about this but I'm firm. I refuse to live together under the pretence that we're having a trial marriage. I've even less willing to live together with no formal reason why. Because "it seems like the thing to do" is no reason to make a major life decision like change residences and live with a boyfriend, relinquishing a secure home for uncertainty.

I want a commitment like that to get the respect it deserves. I don't want it treated lightly.

I've made several comprimises in this relationship and mostly they've been good ones. But comprimising this would be comprimising myself. I was ready to do it before but thankfully I had the chance to rethink it and come to a decision I'm more comfortable with...

Being an independant woman isn't about money or a career or following dictates set by other women, even your own mother. It's about making your own choices and only choosing what you know you want and what you can live with.

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Thank You - 2006, June 7
The end - 2006, June 4
Canada Loves Me - 2006, May 31
In and Out - 2006, May 28
Where Have I Been? - 2006, May 25