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Another "life update"
Jun. 23rd, 2009 01:01 am![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
juldea came over this evening. Her whole body said she was troubled. She sat on the bed and I sat next to her. She opened her arms and I leaned in, my head against her chest. "Your heart is beating so fast", I said. "What's wrong?". Then she whispered, "I'm breaking up with you".It wasn't a thing born of anger, or of anyone doing anything "wrong"-- in fact, that was kind of the issue: we were both doing fine, being the best couple we could be, but for her it just wasn't "right", and she knew that I didn't want to be the person she was only with until she found someone who was.
It's funny; intellectually I assume that I must be in shock, like it hasn't really sunk in yet, but the breakup wasn't really shocking to me. For a while now I'd secretly seen myself more and more as that movie archetype of the well-intentioned, but just-doesn't-fit lover-- the guy the girl leaves confused and puppy-like for the daring rogue in stories that don't make the decision easy by having her current beau be a jerk. Somehow, looking at her face tonight there was this sadness, the source of which I just knew, had known, but hadn't been able to do anything about.
I feel like I should be angry, or something. That's what one is supposed to do in this situation, right? Heck, it's the first time I've been 100% on the receiving end of a breakup, so shouldn't I be milking the whole spurned-lover thing for all it's worth? And yet, the main things going through my mind right now are first, my conviction that it only takes one person for a relationship to be over, whether either party is willing to say so or not, second, that there is no point in fighting it because if you have to talk someone into it being "right", then it's not, and finally a stubborn kind of respect and appreciation for what she's done.
I don't want this relationship to be gone. Oh, how I don't. But it being gone nonetheless, if, to borrow from Herbert, I let it pass over me and through me and then turn the inner eye to see its path, I see that if this is the way she truly feels, then she has done a very hard thing, especially as conflict and hurting other people are very difficult for both of us, and that she has, in a way, done me honor by choosing as she has. She could have strung me along, kept herself in denial and avoided the hard choice. It's probably what I would have done, and as such I must appreciate what it means that she didn't.
I've been thinking a lot about the meaning, or lack thereof, of life lately. If priorities are all just arbitrary choices, then the one I seem to gravitate toward has to do with the role you've played in the stories of the people around you. Afterlife or no, in the end, that's all there is, right? Stories. I've been a part of an important chapter of someone else's story and I value that. I don't know that she wouldn't have made the choice she did six months ago, but I don't think she would have. And I know she wouldn't have done it without consulting anyone else, taking what her gut said on its own weight instead of seeking validation from outside, because she said so. I won't pretend that being a learning experience for ex-lovers isn't getting old by now, but it's still a good part to get in the grand scheme of things. I also keep forgetting that I haven't actually been single in over 10 years... it's probably time to do that for a while
Hmmph. I am... dis-satisfied with my reaction to all this. Well, that's not quite right; in a lot of ways I'm proud. These are the kinds of thoughts and reactions I always hope I can have in situations like this... and yet where's the emotion? Why do I feel like Spock, given a basic ethical problem to work out? Then again, maybe I'm not being fair to myself. There has been emotion. At one point, she looked up at me and said something, the details of which would mean nothing to almost anyone but us, and that broke me. It wasn't meant hurtfully. In fact, the whole reason it hurt was that it was one of those things that makes me smile, makes so happy to be with her... only now I'm not. Yeah, that part definitely hurts. But I cried for a bit, and she held me, and... then we watched a few episodes of Spaced before she went home. It was my idea as much as hers, but something seems wrong with that picture. Seriously, where's the line between bending with the winds, avoiding attachment from whence all sorrow comes, and just being dead inside? I feel like my world should be ending and it's not... maybe this is just what a clean break feels like? Or maybe I'm still in denial. Cheer up, emo kid? Or maybe just sleep. Yeah. For now, definitely sleep.
