Free My Reality by Melissa Rycroft

are not together, and that in this “process” I may lose her. But the timing is not right. There are a lot of things going on in my life right now that I am unsure about (current job, starting a company, where I am living, faith , etc.), and until I get myself figured out, I can’t afford to bring the person I care about most into my confusion.
     
    It was so hard for me to read because he’d made it clear how much he cared about me after all, but he’d also confirmed that he wasn’t able to get back together with me right now. This was definitely something that I needed to see. Parts of what he said made me feel good, but it also made my heart ache. Again.
    Then I looked at the date on the email. He had received it more than a week ago and hadn’t said anything to me about it. That absolutely crushed me. I stopped reading and looked at him until he finally looked up at me. Both of us sat there in silence for what seemed like forever. Then he told me that he had actually found out about The Bachelor BEFORE he got Reagan’s email!
    “My mom is the one who told me,” he said.
    Now I was really shocked. He had heard from his mom, of all people? Well, yes, because her best friend’s neighbor was my best friend’s mom, and she’d heard it from her. Now I was really embarrassed . . .
    I didn’t want his parents to know anything about this!
    “Are you going?” he asked.
    “Well, yeah, I think I’m going to go,” I said.
    I was still worried about his reaction, so I quickly tried to soften the blow.
    “I’m not going to find a relationship,” I said. “I’m not going to find love. Or be on TV. I just need something new. I need to get out of this rut that I’m in. I need a change in my life. I think I need to go.”
    He told me that one of his brother’s ex-girlfriends had gone on The Bachelor about four years earlier, and she said she felt like she’d embarrassed herself.
    “I won’t do that,” I said. “I’m really just going to go, you know?”
    I suddenly felt so relieved that he already knew. I was stillwatching him closely, but it didn’t seem to bother him! It never crossed my mind why it didn’t bother him. I just assumed he was cool with letting me go grab a great experience, and then come home and start over with him. Of course, looking back, it makes sense that he didn’t care, because he wasn’t really emotionally invested in me right then. But in the moment, I was just happy that things were fine between us. The conversation ended, we went downstairs, watched TV, and acted (like we always did) like this huge conversation had never happened.
    I was actually feeling pretty good, because it seemed like the best-case scenario to me: I got to go do this crazy, exciting new thing, and then, when I came home to him, he would probably still want to date me.
    But I couldn’t quite let it go. I wanted to beg him to give me a reason to stay, but I was still afraid of scaring him off. At the end of the night, when it was time for me to leave, I told him that there was still another option.
    “I haven’t signed my contract yet,” I said. “It’s not official that I have to leave. I don’t have to go if you feel weird about it. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable about anything.”
    I don’t know where that came from, because now that I knew he wasn’t going to fight for me to stay with him, I actually wanted to go. I was so disappointed that he couldn’t be with me right then that I had quickly forgotten all of the caring things he had written about me in his email. I was hurt and mad and let down all over again, and I wanted to get away from him. But I still couldn’t quite get clear of him. Whenever we were together, my feelings for him always rose to the surface and kept me from thinking clearly about what I really wanted, except for how much I wanted him.
    And then, he spoke words that stabbed me straight in the heart:
    “I think you should go. You should go and have