Love and Freedpm

Today in class the topic of love and freedom was brought up. This instantly made me think of my life and the decisions that brought me to this class. The choice of maintaining love or pursuing personal goals caused me to make the most difficult decision of my life. I walked away from the only love I have known since I began dating some 15 years ago. I chose to break it off because I felt I was holding her back. We had a 9 year age difference and she was in the middle of college. I was constantly feeling the need to finish my life dreams and attempt to right some wrongs I had done. I felt that if I did truly love her it would be selfish of me to drag her through my crap when she has her whole life ahead of her. I had lived mine and she was just starting hers. I did not want to rob her of the ability to experience limitless potential. Something that we start to loose as we get older, or at least find difficult to achieve. I left her 3 years ago and earned my black belt (life goal,11 years to complete) moved to Wisconsin to be a dad to my 8 year old daughter and enrolled in college to pursue my other life goal. I have maintained a close friendship with her. The only ex I have ever managed to stay friends with. To get back to my original point of love and freedom. The more I pursue the "right things" the more I feel like I have to make a choice of freedom and goal setting or love and settling for mediocre. Many characters in these books seem to choose security and boredom over love. I am starting to feel that you cannot have both, freedom and love. In my case it is hard to find someone to be your best friend, who is able to stand by you, and you by them, while being flexible enough to relocate for schooling and jobs while still maintaining contact with my daughter, and be marriage minded, but not kid minded. As I get older I am surer of what I want and feel that I may be becoming to inflexible to meet someone. This causes me to contemplate my choice of love or freedom on an almost daily basis. I seem to have gone on a ramble here yet again. I will sum up by saying that finding love and freedom together is the ultimate ideal. If that is an impossibility, then I hope to find the inner peace to exist in lonely freedom and the strength to not succumb to unfulfilled love.