On the surface, I know I am lucky. The longest I've ever had to go between visits is one month. My SO and I live close enough and have our finances set up in such a way that, should an emergency arise, we could be at each other's side the next day. He proved it to me when my aunt passed away unexpectedly and he flew up the very next day to be by my side. Academically, I have three scholarships that, together, bring down the cost of university down to community-college level (my scholarships chop off $6000 a semester). This week alone I got complimented by three of my professors. The chair of the department told me my analysis and presentation of a particular article was better than anything she could have done; another professor told me and my group that she was proud of how we conducted our research and how we weren't afraid of admitting our original hypothesis may be wrong (and that we suggested other hypotheses); and yet another professor told me he was "nodding through every sentence of my research proposal" and "can't wait to see the finished product." My boss told me that she had heard nothing but good things about me from the other teachers (I am a student assistant - I help ESL teachers at the Applied English Center on campus and deal with students with the lowest level of English proficiency). I live in a cozy apartment right off campus so I can leave just 15 minutes before my classes or work start, and my roommate is awesome.

Yet I cry way too much.

The past two visits with my boyfriend, I found myself sobbing onto his chest the moment we laid down together. Uncontrollably, the tears come and I can't articulate why. He is an angel, putting up with me. I think he knows me better than I know myself. He tells me he sees how much effort I put into everything, and that he is so proud of me. He tells me he doesn't want to see me run myself into the ground by trying too hard at everything, but he knows I'm a perfectionist. I like to think my drive to succeed at everything is part of the reason he fell in love with me. Whenever I break down and cry, I feel like a failure for not managing to keep the standard up. I also feel like I am not entitled to cry. I know my life could be a million times worse and so, what is my business with the whining and the crying?

I think it has to do with my emotional state, which has been pretty inconsistent recently. Something like my boyfriend not replying for 10 minutes will drive me into a crying fit of "I am not interesting enough anymore). My dreams are not helping. I am pretty adamant that I will never have children. I just... don't like children, and can't see myself raising one. Deep down I am terrified of being a terrible mother. My own mother recently told me there was a number of things she regretted doing, parenting-wise, and that struck a chord within me. I thought I had an unshakable resolution that I would not have children. I told my boyfriend this, warned him that if he wanted children we should just not get together because he couldn't count on me to change my mind. He is ok with it. I know he loves children, but he told me he was perfectly fine with always being able to hand them back. I don't hate children, I'm just not very good with them and don't want any of my own.

So then I had this dream. I "woke up" in my dream to find myself giving birth - a distressing event because, obviously, I'm not pregnant! My boyfriend was there and, after the birth, handed me the child - our son. Such a small, ugly little thing. I wanted to bond with it and throw it away all at the same time. I let it breastfeed. Then my boyfriend picked him up and I was saying we needed to give him up for adoption, how could we let this happen without planning, what the hell do we do now. But my boyfriend wasn't listening. He was falling in love with this kid, our son. He told me, ever so softly "this is a piece of us. You and me, together, we made this. And it's beautiful. He's beautiful. Maybe this isn't so bad for us." And I started agreeing with him. Maybe it wasn't so bad. I remembered smiling in the dream, and telling him that yes, maybe we should give this whole parenting thing a try. He smiled and handed me my baby, our son.

Who then promptly started choking and died in my arms.

I was shaken the next day, tried not to think about it as I made it through my day. That evening we talked about that dream. He told me he would never push me into such a decision, that even if I got pregnant and somehow didn't know about it, he wouldn't coerce or sweet talk me into keeping the child. I don't know how he can say this with such certainty when he hasn't experienced it, but I want to trust him on this. I told him I appreciate him and all the things he does - all the little things like leaving me cute messages or adding "Propose" to his to-do list we both share (we share a number of lists - his to-do list, my to-do list, and things for us to do together). And then he said something that completely shattered me: "I don't really care about this relationship."

I started sobbing. On the spot. I was on Skype and I still had my makeup from the day, but I was emotionally frazzled and that just made me snap and I cried and cried.

Of course what he meant was that he isn't doing those things for the sake of the relationship, he's doing them because it's me and he wants me to smile. As in, he's not doing the sweet things because it's what's expected in the relationship, but because he wants me to be happy. He has trouble communicating his feelings/emotions because for 6 years before me he was with a bitc-- sorry, a woman who made it seem like all his feelings, opinions etc were wrong. He's made tremendous progress in being able to tell me what's on his mind and what his feelings are, but sometimes his wording doesn't work.

I know this. And yet it still makes me cry. I cry way too much.