Option C

What Aiden is looking for is not actually option C...it's option "D-all-of-the-above," which I should have picked up on earlier, because that's been one of his favorite phrases as long as I've known him. I told him yesterday that option C is that I leave and tell him to fuck off.

I was wrong. That's not my option C. I've been feeling so guilty about dragging him along, and he's been asking for more time, but I can't doodle around waiting for a decision he won't make...so here's how those things work together. I apply the deadline only to myself, and leave Aiden to do what he wants.

He cannot have option D; that requires me to want it too, and it's near the bottom of the list of things I want. I don't feel bad about that. I've spent enough time and energy trying to force myself to be part of someone else's paradigm that I really cannot muster an apology for having figured out what I don't want.

So I'm leaving. I need my out and I will have it, and I will have it soon. But Aiden doesn't have to come with me. As long as I don't get locked into a minimum-length lease agreement, there's no reason for me not to go off on my own and see what happens. If he decides in a month that I'm where he wants to be, he can come join me.

This feels right. I can't speak for him, but it feels to me like a reasonable compromise. The only concern it leaves me with is the upcoming vacation. The small Aiden is going to be away at camp for four weeks, and that's our only chance during the entire year to take a vacation. If he comes back to me after taking the vacation with Shelby, I'm going to be pissed at missing out. The possibility of time with him and no one else gets me unreasonably excited, and when I miss out on something that gets me that excited, in turn I get unreasonably disappointed. To be honest, that's probably part of the reason for my giving him a deadline in the first place. Firstly, it was for my general sanity; I can't indefinitely put my life on hold to wait for something that may not even happen. But secondly, it was to get things sorted before The Vacation, so I know what to plan for and just how much to worry.