Hi everyone, I have got a dilemma and would like some thought becasue right now my head is so clouded with what I want, I know it's blocking out some of what I actually have.

I have been in a relationship for 8 years now, the majority of it has been long distance. After being together for 3 years I quit my job and moved to her town across the country to live with her. I wound up getting a job at McDonalds and Wal-Mart but didn't care because we were together. After living in the same town as her I got a job at a large company and several months later was promoted to another office and had to move about 600 miles away from her. I jumped at the opportunity for career advancement. For the last 15 months we have been long distance again, over the past few months it seems as though all conversations are started by me. We hardly see eachother and when we do it seems like she's not to happy to see me. At least thats how I feel. I wanted to show her how much I loved her so this past July I took her to one of her favorite vacation spots in Florida and propsed to her, her reaction wasn't what I had hoped, she didn't say no, but she didn't really say yes.

We are both still young, I'm 23 and she's 21, she lives with her parents in her town now and has visions of moving to the place shes dreamed of, the only problem is her parents filed bankruptcy and she has no concept of money and does not have the ability to move. I invited to ler her come live with me, which is on the way to where she wants to live and then we can both move together in the future, she says no. She says it's becasue she is going to college and the classes she wants are not offered out here where I live, which is true. But still. The other day we talked after I initiated the conversation again and I told her how much I loved her and just rambled and said how the distance between us sucked, and she replied back saying "how could it suck, thats all we ever had", she then went on to talk about how she is living her life not the way she wants, she wants to move to her ideal spot and live alone. When I asked, what about me? She said "what about you?".

This may be an easy problem to solve, I really don't want to break up with her because we have been together for so long, but it doesn't seem to make sense to stay with someone because of time. I've heard it's the journey that matters, not the destination. I keep having these dreams of what the destination is going to be like, not even focusing the fact right now it feels like the car is broke down.

What do you think I should do? And if I break up with her, how would I go about asking for the ring back I gave her? Normally I would let her have it, but the diamond in it was in the ring my grandfather gave to my grandmother. Or should I just continue on and hope things get better?