So That's Done With

Saw L last night.  She's pretty on board with the idea that we're breaking up now.  Turns out that on Monday she went through my desk.  She was afraid I might be cheating and went looking for clues.  Can't find proof of something that never happened, but she DID find one of Athol's books, which led her to the MMSL and through it to this blog.  So, not exactly the way I would have chosen for things to end, but damn if it didn't do the trick.

I don't know if she's still reading this.  I'm going to continue as if she's not.  I hope she's not, and I don't think she is, but I didn't ask if she would.  It's none of my business any more.  I still need this as a way to get my thoughts out, so I'm going to keep going with it.

After that, the conversation stayed pretty much to practical things.  We're mostly in agreement on how things need to go from here.  As little contact as necessary to make the split happen as fairly and amicably as an be arranged.  We both agreed with some variation of "Maybe someday I'll get to a place where I can see you again... or I might never get there."  There wasn't any insulting "let's stay friends!" talk.  We both know ourselves and each other too well for that.

I offered to keep paying my half of the rent for up to three months.  She looked at me horrified: "I don't want to stay in that place for three months!"  I didn't figure she would, just thought that would be a good maximum beyond which she should be expected to be on her own.  She's hoping to get out by the end of October, which would be my ideal as well so I can start looking for my own place too.  She says she's fine with giving me both the couch and the bed.  She seemed kind of conflicted on the bed, and I can't blame her.  On the one hand, a bed's a pretty personal thing, and I can't blame her for not wanting to literally sleep in the middle of all those memories.  On the other hand, it's a REALLY nice bed.  She just asked that I let her keep it until she finds one sized for one person.  I figure that's more than fair.  Told her the offer was on the table to keep it if she changed her mind.

There was a lot of cognitive dissonance going on in that conversation.  Usually whenever we have such a fundamental disconnect and then get it resolved, that's the time to start reconnecting and talking about our feelings and how the experience affected us.  But of course, any time we started to do that, it's like, wait.  The thing that we resolved was the fact that we're breaking up.  Duh.

The worst was ending the conversation and walking away, and I said as much.  "What do I do now?  Do I wave?  Do I shake your hand?  What a lame way to say goodbye to someone who's so important to me.  But I can't hug you either."  She said she'd been going through the same thing in her head.  "Do I hug him?  Fuck no I don't wanna hug him!  But I wanna hug him...."  I didn't hug her.  She said, "I think we already said goodbye last Friday.  I just didn't realize it at the time."  I nodded, and I turned awkwardly around and walked away.