Love... What is it? I have spent years thinking that finding someone to love is the only thing worth doing in life. I have been in 3 serious relationships in my adult life. The first one ended just after 13 months. I thought I loved Jory and thought we'd be together forever. During the last month, I moved from MA to NC for college while she was finishing her senior year back home. During my first and only month in NC, I started thinking that I wanted a change and contemplated leaving her to try to find someone "better". Before I could muster the courage to hurt her and break up, she took me by surprise one day and just ended it in a MySpace email of all places. I dropped out of school and moved home to try to fix it. If I fast forward 2 and a half years, I had just come home from Army Basic Combat Training after receiving a medical discharge (I'll save that story for a future blog). I was hanging out with my best friend Dan's wife Amy. Dan was serving in Iraq at that point and Amy and I hung out a lot, kind of serving as a replacement for our missing counterpart. While at a friends house with Amy, she introduced me to Nancy with whom I would date for 3 years. After about a year, we were engaged and only about 3 months later I had called it off and broke up with her. Again, I wanted someone "better". It only took about a month or so before I was lonely and too shy to try to go out on my own and try to meet someone, I got back together with Nancy, no engagement this time, and we were together for another year. By this point Dan had become a man I wanted nothing to do with and he divorced Amy. Dan is out of our lives and Amy and I still remain friends but don't talk much due to me spending time with Nancy and her with her own new boyfriend in another state. But, as often happens, Amy and her boyfriend broke up and she moved home and I started to hang out with her again. At this point I was growing bored with Nancy and once again looking for someone "better" and there was a spark between Amy and I. In a flash I left Nancy a second and final time and started dating Amy. We took it slow at first. Essentially remaining just slightly more than friends for about three months before we finally became an official couple and after about a year she moved in with me and wound up getting pregnant. We weren't trying but we weren't exactly actively trying to avoid this either. Things were good and I thought I was happy. For the year prior to our relationship, I was unemployed and racked up some debt and at this point could barely afford to take care of myself and Amy had only just started working herself. Needless to say, pregnancy while in debt was a very scary thought. After we had just gotten used to the idea about 2 weeks later, she had a miscarriage. As hard as it was, I breathed a sign of relief. I knew I needed to get myself in order financially for a child could be feasible. Things became stressful after this and I felt like we were on not just separate pages or even chapters but that we were in separate books altogether. She wanted a family and I wanted to go back to school and start a real career. 3 months ago I broke up with her. I just finished my first semester back and pulled good grades while working full time. I should be happy about this. Instead, I find myself in a very dark place lately. I've thought of things as dark as suicide. However, there is no cause for alarm. If there is one thing I am known for it is hope. I am forever hopeful that maybe, just maybe, I will find whatever it is I am looking for. Is it love...? What is love...? Is it something else...? What is it? Deep down in my soul there is something missing and I've been searching a lifetime for it. Today I considered taking the easy road and begging Amy to take me back. Lying and telling her that I love her and that everything will be okay even though that I know it won't last. Alas, I left well enough alone and did not talk to Amy. Maybe I have grown up? I don't know. With all I have experienced and learned in my life. All I truly know, is that I don't know anything at all. Maybe someday I will figure out what I am searching for. Maybe I will even find it some day. Until that day, I will simply be... - TJ Pres