Just three miles from the rest stop, she slams on the breaks

That flash of piercing clarity where you realise, from the depths of your gut, that this is not where you want to be. Its not a logical conclusion derived after analysis, or a calculated decision after weighing up pros and cons, but a quiet sort of 'right, I'm not putting up with this rubbish anymore' which has a powerful, contained resolve.

You may have been rationally analysing along those lines for months or been miserable for ages or perhaps a quiet feeling had been sneaking up unawares for some time, but what I'm talking about is that final spark which breaks the connection keeping you in a certain place, whether it is in a relationship, a job or just waking up to what a quagmire your comfort zone has become. Rob Thomas sums it up beautifully:

She said - while you were sleeping
I was listening to the radio
And wondering what you're dreaming when
It came to mind that I didn't care

- Rest Stop by Matchbox Twenty

Somehow those last two lines capture how things just click into place in a quiet, often completely random moment.  It doesn't necessarily hail the end of self doubt at that twitching hour of 3am [MB20 again!], just that its easier to rationalise the brain back to sleep. You've passed that point where what you want, generally in my case, sanity, slips higher on the priority list overtaking whatever was creating drama.

I've always felt that 'vibrant' is too strongly complimentary an adjective to use on a person. Until I met my ex-boss. She is the most intensely alive person I've met to date. I'm going to quit while ahead and leave readers to use their imagination rather than try to describe her. Lets just say no one who met her, no matter how briefly, could ever forget her, customers were guaranteed to be walking away with a smile on their faces. She's just one of those.

She had been working at her job for over 20 years, longer than I've been alive! She's always loved it, her first job which she assumed would be her only one. We joked that she had roots entwined in the foundations of the place and she could never leave because the place would fall apart, and spirit wise it was so very true. In the last couple of years however, change of management etc etc, it became insanely, unfairly and more annoying, unneccesarily stressful for her and people kept telling her she deserved better and should leave but she couldnt. There was a massive emotional investment: her husband worked there, the team was like family, she had known all the regular customers and retailers for years. She fell ill constantly, was permanently stressed out for about two years before she reached that 'rest stop moment', a tipping point, where everything fell into place and she was able to break out of the unhealthy situation within her comfort zone and move on without looking back.

Non-mutual breakups are so messy and painful because one person has reached that moment but the other is yet to get there. And that sucks, as you can't force an epiphany. It's one of those irritating mental switches that you can lean over and juuust brush with your fingers, unable to get enough of a grasp to flip it at will. 

Just three miles from the rest stop
And she slams on the breaks
She said I tried to be but I'm not
And could you please collect your things
I don't wanna be cold
I don't wanna be cruel
But I gotta find more
Than what's happening with you
If you'd open up the door...