Teetering

I have realized something.

As demands for my master's program only grow...I know something is going to have to give.

I knew this was a possibility from the beginning and I hate everything about it, but...

I think I'm going to have to really step away from my relationship with my boyfriend for a while. And it hurts.
It has nothing to do with him, he's perfect. It has nothing to do with us, we love each other and we're both in it for the long haul.

It's me.
I can't have my heart and attention in two places like this. Either I'm all in school (like I'm demanded to be) or I'm all in for him.
Other people might be able to do it. I can't.

I can eek out time with him, yes. But when I spend time with him, my heart is pulled more towards him and less towards school. It's not so much that I don't have the space in my schedule, and that I don't have space in my mind, my attention.

The worst part is, this is going to be harder on him than it is on me. I think he's already at war with himself. Sometimes he's really encouraging me to spend more time on school, sometimes he's making me rethink it, whether it's really worth the sacrifice.

I've already decided that this is what I want, that I was going to make sacrifices for it. And maybe I didn't know at the time what that really meant, how much the sacrifices were going to hurt, but I dedicated too much to back out now.

What does this looks like? My throat clenches at the thought. Seeing him once a week, once every two weeks? Oh, I hate that...will our relationship crumble? Will I forget how much I love him if I have to force myself to ignore him?

I'm so scared for us.

15 months left.