How Do You Do It?
It's been a week since I last saw her...
"I can't do this any more," I said. "This just isn't working."
We were both standing in her sister’s front room after dinner.
"What? What are you talking about?" She asked, a look of frustration on her face.
"This... Us, it's just not working. You can't do this to me any more," I said zipping up my jacket.
"Let's go outside," she said and started to put on her shoes.
“No!” I said almost shouting. “There’s no point.”
“Are you determined to humiliate me?” she asked, her eyes taking on a glazed look. Her sister and brother-in-law were in the next room. They exited only seconds before when the tension built so high in the room you could have run a stereo on it.
“No…” I answered. There was an almost imperceptible pause. “I’m determined to leave.”
I walked over to the door. She looked at me incredulously, her body frozen in place.
“Good-bye,” I said, opening the door. “I love you.”
Even as I write this, she is boarding a plane to head back home. I will probably never see her again. After 15 months, over 10,000 miles of travel and what seems a lifetime of love, tears, happiness and hearthache, our relationship has come to an end.
Meanwhile, I am sitting here at work, trying to pick up the pieces of my life and put them in some sort of order that will let me go on with my life… a life without her.
It was only the night before we broke up that we were sitting at a little café in Old Towne, sipping on drinks and talking of what we would name our children, where we would live, where our careers would take us. Hours passed and neither of us noticed. We were so caught up in each other that the outside world didn’t exist. Now, that outside world is all I have left to fill the void that rests in the spaces between her memory.
We traveled the world together. Paris, Oslo, Bergen, Salt Lake City, Washington DC. We talked of going this year to London, San Diego, Ghana. We both loved to see the world and we both loved to see our relationship grow in new places. It seemed there was nothing that could ever bring us apart. Until it did.
I’m not going to go into details. It would betray who we were. Sufficient to say that at the end of the day, I can sleep at night knowing that I gave everything I was to make that relationship work, and in the end, it just didn’t work.
Some friends of mine have been surprised how I have taken this. They comment to me about seeing a stoic face whose actions have been unchanged since the breakup. I didn’t even mention the breakup until several days after it happened, and then only when people asked why I wasn’t with her. In part, this was in part due to not wanting to deal with all the wankers who would offer false condolences and then try and push their way into what is none of their fucking business, but I realize it also kept out people who really cared.
For those who really are concerned and aren’t just the vampiric types, I don’t think I could act any differently if I wanted to. The grief is real and tremendous, but it’s internal. To share it would open a floodgate that I have to keep at a steady silent stream. I hope this is the right way to deal with it.
But, how do you move on from someone you thought you would spend your life with? How do you re-construct your life without what you thought was the most precious component? How can you ever have someone else fill that spot? That’s all I have to say on it right now.
"I can't do this any more," I said. "This just isn't working."
We were both standing in her sister’s front room after dinner.
"What? What are you talking about?" She asked, a look of frustration on her face.
"This... Us, it's just not working. You can't do this to me any more," I said zipping up my jacket.
"Let's go outside," she said and started to put on her shoes.
“No!” I said almost shouting. “There’s no point.”
“Are you determined to humiliate me?” she asked, her eyes taking on a glazed look. Her sister and brother-in-law were in the next room. They exited only seconds before when the tension built so high in the room you could have run a stereo on it.
“No…” I answered. There was an almost imperceptible pause. “I’m determined to leave.”
I walked over to the door. She looked at me incredulously, her body frozen in place.
“Good-bye,” I said, opening the door. “I love you.”
Even as I write this, she is boarding a plane to head back home. I will probably never see her again. After 15 months, over 10,000 miles of travel and what seems a lifetime of love, tears, happiness and hearthache, our relationship has come to an end.
Meanwhile, I am sitting here at work, trying to pick up the pieces of my life and put them in some sort of order that will let me go on with my life… a life without her.
It was only the night before we broke up that we were sitting at a little café in Old Towne, sipping on drinks and talking of what we would name our children, where we would live, where our careers would take us. Hours passed and neither of us noticed. We were so caught up in each other that the outside world didn’t exist. Now, that outside world is all I have left to fill the void that rests in the spaces between her memory.
We traveled the world together. Paris, Oslo, Bergen, Salt Lake City, Washington DC. We talked of going this year to London, San Diego, Ghana. We both loved to see the world and we both loved to see our relationship grow in new places. It seemed there was nothing that could ever bring us apart. Until it did.
I’m not going to go into details. It would betray who we were. Sufficient to say that at the end of the day, I can sleep at night knowing that I gave everything I was to make that relationship work, and in the end, it just didn’t work.
Some friends of mine have been surprised how I have taken this. They comment to me about seeing a stoic face whose actions have been unchanged since the breakup. I didn’t even mention the breakup until several days after it happened, and then only when people asked why I wasn’t with her. In part, this was in part due to not wanting to deal with all the wankers who would offer false condolences and then try and push their way into what is none of their fucking business, but I realize it also kept out people who really cared.
For those who really are concerned and aren’t just the vampiric types, I don’t think I could act any differently if I wanted to. The grief is real and tremendous, but it’s internal. To share it would open a floodgate that I have to keep at a steady silent stream. I hope this is the right way to deal with it.
But, how do you move on from someone you thought you would spend your life with? How do you re-construct your life without what you thought was the most precious component? How can you ever have someone else fill that spot? That’s all I have to say on it right now.
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