"I don't want normal and easy and simple.."

It's been three and a half years. I've been in love with my best friend for three of those years. I was happy. In love and happy. And then one day, I wasn't.

One day I woke up and realized this life wasn't for me. He didn't do anything specifically wrong, like cheat on me or abuse me. I wasn't angry with him. I just wasn't happy and I don't know why. Actually, I do know why, I wasn't in love anymore. More I looked at him, more I realized that he was my best friend. But JUST my best friend.

I still love him. I'd donate every organ in my body for him. But I'm not in love anymore and that is okay. It is okay that I want different things than I wanted three years ago. I have grown. He has grown. But we are growing at different rates. We have become different people than we were three years ago and these new people don't go together.

Six months ago I realized I was content with my life. It was an ordinary life. I had an apartment, a job and a serious relationship. It was fine.

I was tired of being "fine."

You should never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary. That's what it was. An ordinary relationship in an ordinary life. I wanted more.

I wanted a great love in a great life that took me all over the world. I wanted the kind of life that people were in awe of. I wanted to love myself too. I wanted extraordinary. Or I should say, I want. We haven't broken up.

Thats right. I have been in a relationship for the past six months without love. It's taken six months of living like this to finally being able to say out loud "I need more." I was in denial for a while. Then I was sad, until I became happy with this decision.

About a month ago I decided I was breaking up with my boyfriend; but he doesn't know it yet.

It's not easy. Terminating a relationship like ours. We have been through a lot, and part of me isn't ready for this relationship to end. However, its time. Maybe in a few years, we will both be in the same place, and we can have that all-consuming love that I want, but not now. Right now, we need to be our own people. We need to grow and learn to love without each other.

The hardest part about leaving a relationship like ours is, I will be losing my best friend. Both of us will be. Sure, staying friends is always an option, but in our case, I don't think it's the best option. In order for us to become who we need to be, we need to be apart.

We suffocate each other.

It used to be a good thing, but now, it's harmful. We are both holding each other back from having an extraordinary life and I want more for him than that. I want more for me than that. So it's time for both of us to move on; I just hope I can find a way to tell him.

"...I want painful, dificult, devestating, life-changing, extraordinary love." - Olivia Pope