It sounded hopelessly cliché, but Pam Beesley was going to find herself.

For almost ten years, she had been labeled a word that couldn’t be found in any dictionary, yet seemed to be a part of everyday lexicon. Pamandroy. Royandpam. Defined interchangeably as a couple that just was and would always be.

At first, and for a long while, she loved being his. On his arm, in his bed, wearing his letter jacket, wearing his ring. Being his meant being loved and protected and provided for. It meant butterflies in her stomach when he possessively put his arm around her shoulders in front of his friends. It meant weekends at his brother's lake house, riding wave runners until they ran out of gas and he had to paddle back to shore with her clinging to his back. It meant endless nights of staying up late on the phone, talking about their dreams and plans for the future.

But when it came time to take his last name and officially become his, she felt suffocated by all the ways it just wasn’t enough anymore. She was drowning in a sea of infinite blackness and she'd thrown away her last life preserver with a single nod of her head and a final squeeze of her fingers.

There was no one to save her now.

It taken her so long – too long – to realize that all she had to do was move her arms and legs and save herself.

It was terrifying and heartbreaking and exhilarating all at once, but when it was over, she felt a weight lift off of her shoulders; a weight she hadn’t even realized was crushing her into a shell of her former self.

She felt free to be herself again, if only she could remember what that meant.

If it took every day for the rest of her life, she was determined to find out.

She started wearing her favorite flannel pajamas to bed, the ones she’d self-consciously threw into her closet when they were deemed ‘gramma jammies’. She began stocking her refrigerator with cherry vanilla ice cream when she remembered those hot summers at camp during junior high when she and her girlfriends would eat it by the gallon as they told stories about the elusive French kiss. She routinely geeked out over the History Channel in her wire rimmed glasses, always smiling, as she knew she would never have to watch SportsCenter again.

More importantly, she was learning to be happy again.

She missed him at night, when it was cold, but she invested in wool socks of every color to keep her warm. She missed him when the bills came in and money was tight. She missed him because he had been her life for ten years and she would always miss him.

But she didn’t love him. Not in the way he deserved to be loved. He deserved more than to be someone’s heater or their banker or because they were safe and familiar, like an old teddy bear that had worn out its use but she felt too guilty to throw away.

She didn’t love him in the way she deserved. In that all consuming way she read about in her secret romance novels she used to hide under the mattress but now left folded at the spine on her nightstand. She wanted to have a conversation with without using words. She wanted someone to constantly challenge her. She wanted to know that she was in the presence of something so tangible, she would never have to doubt herself again.

Quite simply, Pam wanted it all.

Roy hadn’t understood, but that was okay. She hadn’t really expected him to. He was a simple man who wanted simple things. He was happy with his job and he was satisfied with their relationship and he was content with his life. There wasn’t anything wrong with that.

But she wanted more for herself. She wanted those dreams back, the ones she used to tell him about every night on the phone as they spoke about getting out of this town and taking the world by storm.

There was still time for her, but it became painfully clear with each passing day that she had to do it alone.

Her new house was covered from wall to wall with art. A few were re-prints of her favorite artists, some of them were for inspiration, and most of them were her own work. All of them were beautiful and it gave her hope.

She went on dates occasionally, but they never worked out. How could she determine who was right for her when she didn’t even know herself?

The phenomenon previously known as Pamandroy generally had agreed on everything, given enough time and disillusionment. Favorite pizza toppings, favorite movies, favorite vacation spots had all somehow morphed into one and the same.

But on her own, Pam found herself picking the pepperoni off her pizza, preferring instead the extra flavor of bell peppers with her light sauce and extra cheese.

She found herself deleting the slapstick gross out comedies off of her Tivo and opting to watch Dazed and Confused on loop instead.

After she called off the wedding, she went on the honeymoon alone, but not to the Poconos like Roy had planned. She went someplace hot and sunny and just painted everything in sight.

Children laughing on the beach, young lovers sunbathing side by side, sea gulls flapping their wings as they scanned the murky depths for fish, the sunsets that hovered so precariously over the sea.

She got lonely for companionship. Being touched and held and kissed. Talking until the sun came up, having someone to call whenever she made up a new word, making love in the middle of the afternoon just because.

Her heart had a hole that ached to be filled. Eventually. When she was ready.

The last thing she needed was to jump into another relationship and to be intimate too quickly and to fall in love too deeply only to end up back where she was.

A kept woman pinned down by the monotony of her life.

She thought of Jim sometimes. More than she’d like to admit because thinking of Jim made her heart restless and her resolve weak when she remembered Jelly Bellies and teapots and Jell-O and laughter. So much laughter.

She tried so much not to think of Jim, but when she did, she wondered what he was doing. If he was happy. If he missed her. If he had found another woman to stare at with those warm green eyes as though she were the only one in the world for him.

She wondered if he knew that she called off the wedding. She wondered if it hurt him to know she hadn’t told him herself, nor had she contacted him since.

But if anyone were to understand why she had to do this on her own, Jim would. He would want this for her. She thinks he might even be proud.

She hoped that he was.

Pam just couldn’t focus on that now. She had to focus on her art school applications, on her chicken or fish, on a way to get out of this town and take the world by storm.

She had to focus on herself, for once.

But when Dwight opened his package and exhumed a finely crafted Gaydar from beneath the bubble wrap, she couldn’t help but smile to herself and hope when all was said and done, she wasn’t too late.