Big Things

Our ability to bear the weight of the people we hope to be and forgive the people we are.

To believe everything entirely, while also calling bullshit for what it is.

~ Sugar

I'm sitting waiting to skype with my friend who lives in Amsterdam, reading posts on getting through break-ups, how to make a coconut curry soup, and how to replace bathroom tiles.

I want to write about this break-up the way I am feeling it. It feels like:

I'm just gonna make this soup, fix those tiles. Oh I'm going to cry a bit now, but it's fine. It's fine.

I'm sad, but if I compare today's feelings to Monday, the day I realized that I had pinned my hopes on a relationship that was more or less broken, the end feels better then being part of something broken.

So it fine now. It's shitty and sorrowful, and lonely, but honestly, it's fine.

On Thursday I walked away from a relationship, bought a beautiful apple, ate it, and went to the gym for a run.

I kept looking at our life together, wondering how we would function as a team, slowly realizing we probably never would. I would continue to want what I wanted and plan my life and work for my goals, and he would do the same, and we would never share enough. Not enough for me anyways, maybe enough for him.

What was really scary was the feeling that maybe his goals, and his ways, and his problems. Maybe we would both make sure those were more important than mine.

That's what I felt happening. I just felt like I was beginning to disappear. I probably disappeared myself by saying the phrase women are famous for saying:

"Relationships take work."

What that really meant was: I am trying to make myself be happy with what is, and not agitate for something different, some way of being together that makes me feel genuinely happy, because I don't think I can get it from this man.

And I want this man.

I still don't know about this whole "relationships take work" business. Maybe I just got it wrong this time. Maybe I misunderstood what the work was, maybe I did the wrong kind of work, I don't know, I hate that metaphor. I have a job, I already do enough work in a day. I want a relationship that is a friendship, a partnership, and a joy to experience. I want the opposite of work. I am not sure, maybe that's a fantasy I got from too much tv.

The point is I gave up. I mothballed the entire operation. I didn't struggle, I didn't demand anything better, I didn't even give him a chance to explain himself. I am not sure what that says about me. I probably won't understand until later when the random crying part has stopped.

I guess I don't believe you need to fight to be in love. Maybe I am wrong about that. But I want to find love that is fine. I want to fight only about the little things, until the big things arise, I don't want big things 6 months in. I don't want to feel forced to ignore big things just because I know the amount of rage and sorrow the mention of them provokes is too big by far for one person to take.

I am so sorry I ended the relationship, and I am so glad as well.