I need a new strategy

I just said goodbye to her tonight. She thinks it's a temporary thing, and I hope she's right. The thing is it hurts to talk to her. It hurts not to talk to her. It just hurts all the time. I don't feel the connection with her anymore, although I know it's still there, I can feel it in quiet times. We haven't really talked in awhile, and I'm feeling so cautious with my heart that this really doesn't suprise me. Plus, it's hard to feel connected to another person when I'm not connected to myself. I feel like I'm falling down into a canyon or something. I keep trying to grasp at anything along the way to stop me from crashing to the ground. My whole world is just spinning around me. But it's not out of control. I don't feel like I lack control. I just feel like things are moving faster than what's comfortable for me. I feel like I need to make decisions that I'm not ready to make.

I feel this not only in regards to her, but in regards to my career, where I want to live, what I want for my life. I feel soooooo conflicted. There are days when I think I should just join the foreign service and devote my life to living overseas - relationshipless, childless, familyless. And other times the thought of such a life fills me with sadness because I envision being married and having a family, and this makes me joyful. And although I know I don't have to make any kind of decision about any of this right now, I feel like I need to. I have always lived more by the seat of my pants. I've always had goals for the future and things that I've wanted to do in my life, but opportunities have always come to me, seemingly right out of the blue, and I have pursued them, and they have proved to be tremendously meaningful to me. So why I can't continue with this strategy now?

I HATE not knowing what's going to happen to me. I don't like looking into my future and seeing nothing but a blank slate. I've always been able to look into the year ahead and say, oh, I'll be in school, or I'll be in Africa, or I'll be at the lab, or I'll be with so-and-so. When I look at this time next year, I can't tell you where I'll be working, where I'll be living, who I'll be with, or if I'll be with anyone at all. I know that no one ever really knows what the future holds, but usually you can know with a small degree of certainty what at least part of your life will look like.

Don't get me wrong, part of me is totally excited to find out what is going to happen to me....if the pattern of my life continues, then it's sure to be fantastic. But what if it's not? What if nothing works out for me - what if she doesn't turn out to love me, what if I don't get a job I like, what if I'm still stagnant in the future like I am now? That would be the worst outcome of all, to still be in the same place I'm in now. Stuck.

Anyway, I don't even know why I went on this tangent. The girls will be here any minute. I need to put on a happy face and not think about her. Gotta get her outta my head, outta my heart. At least for now. It just doesn't make sense to me. But whatever.