Noni's Stargazing Saturday: A New Year's Spent Looking To The Future

***Noni is one of my really good friends from college. We were even roommates for a year and some change. But she's done with school (for now). She's starting a family with a baby boy and working on herself and her relationship at the same time. Things won't always be easy, but they're usually always interesting.***

Quick Recap [In my last post about Noni, which was three weeks ago, I expressed concern for Noni that the improvements in her relationship with Eric had basically gone away again. I wasn't exactly surprised, but I had been hoping that things would have improved for her. She works so hard to keep their home and kid together, I was just hoping that he would help her out more.] Read Stargazing Saturday posts.

Since that time, some interesting changes have occurred with Noni.

She's on the precipice of a full-blown quarter life crisis.

Pretty much all my friends have been through this around their 25th birthday. I may write a blog post about it on my main blog.

I want to tell a quick story about Noni from college.

She was dating this guy in our group of friends and they had a series of what should have been epic crashes and burns.

But over the years they were involved, they never actually officially ended things.

One day, she just decided she was done. She gathered her things and left.

She did this while he was away from the apartment. And she never looked back.

They are friends now (years later), but they will never again be romantically involved.

That was then.

At this point in her life, with this roller coaster she's on with Eric, she's considering gathering her things and leaving him.

Without warning. Just deciding to be done and leaving.

Things are more complicated now though. They have a son together. She's about to start back at school Monday after next.

This feeling she's been having reads a lot like a quarter life crisis. Her 25th birthday is in May.

For Noni, this could be a quarter life crisis, or more of the same. But that doesn't matter.

What matters is she is finally starting to realize that if your long-term happiness in a relationship depends on the person you're with changing, something is wrong.

After a pretty detailed discussion, I found out that things are still good with Eric. Sometimes.

But there are times when things are so frustrating that she just wants to gather her things and leave.

I told her about how Bad and Jordan are my drama free couple and she and Eric are my roller coaster couple.

I told her that I felt that even if she did leave Eric, her next relationship would be just as dramatic.

She agreed that she is drawn to the feeling of being with a person who is unpredictable and can't be controlled.

She likes a man who is his own person and is a bit mysterious.

The only problem is guys like that stay that way. Even in the middle of a serious relationship, they stay unpredictable.

They become the guy you can't count on for consistency. They are the guy you fight with and then make up with several times a month.

Noni would like to find the one guy who starts out unpredictable and then magically become dependable and consistent.

So after all of that, what happens now?

Well, for now, the good still outweighs the bad.

Noni doesn't like the constant drama with Eric. At least not as often as it happens.

She doesn't like fighting with him about him doing things that should come natural to a grown-up raising two kids.

But she's staying. She's expecting to reach that point of no return where he comes home to find all her stuff gone.

She wants more than what Eric is offering. Well, she wants what he is offering, but not what he actually delivers.

She just still has hope that one day things will turn around for them.

She still loves him and wants things to work out so she and the man she loves can raise the child they made together.

I don't know where they are going from here. I know they are still together.

I do find myself wondering how he feels about all this. Is he as frustrated with their relationship? Is he feeling that they are near their end?

But I'm not friends with Eric. I'm friends with Noni. So I guess those questions will never be answered.