Break-ups are SHIT! Knee-deep sewerage! Fucking awful!
You’ll have heard me say a few times “as far as break-ups go we’re doing real good” but its still shit. Shit. Shit. Awful, knee-dip Shit.
Now I know we aren’t the first couple to break-up and I know that a lot of couples have it a lot worse than us. But it still gets you real down, rocks your world and just makes everything else in life so much harder. Its been two and a half weeks now and I’ve really, really struggled. I'm up and down like a yo-yo, I still find it really hard to talk to people about it, I can't get the simplest of things done. But I'll have spurts where the world is my oyster, nothing impossible. I'm exhausting myself. I’m not saying this for sympathy or support, please don’t, but just because this space has become my little world where I can talk about whatever I want and say whatever is on my mind. Tell my 'story of the day'.
It’s the little things that are the hardest. Clichéd I know, and something most others have experienced themselves. For me its kinda new. I’ve had break-ups before but not on this scale. My last was after two years but by the time we broke up we lived in different cities. This is 6 years where we both dramatically changed our lives and built something really cool together and it’s so much harder to say goodbye to that than I thought it would be. How naïve is that. I just have nothing to compare this too, I don't know whats normal and whats not.
One day this week I actually called or emailed him 3 times in a few hours without even realising. And it was silly stuff like how it only cost me only $37 to have my tyre fixed and how another blogger posted me. Whatever was top of mind. It was only later in the day that I realised what I’d done and that it’s probably not kosher anymore, or particularly healthy. It’s all been so smooth between us that it didn’t even seem odd. It was a bit of a crystal ball moment that we/I have to actively change how much we rely on each other. Uggghhhh. I am definitely a creature of habit, I do not handle change well. 38 years experience tells me that.
One really upsetting thing is the ‘reporting in’. When you’re in a relationship it is so normal to let your partner know where you are and what you are doing. “Honey, held up at work, won’t be home till 8” or “made it down to Thirroul, just getting Chinese, will call you after I’ve eaten”. No need to do that anymore and that’s just plain unsettling. I still instinctually want to do it all the time. It’s this constant, subtle but harsh reminder that you don’t have your partner anymore and that hurts. Its sounds inconsequential but its not for me.
This doesn't mean I’m having second thoughts though. I know we've made the right decision, I know it’s right for both of us, as does exBoyfriend – absolutely no question about that. It’s just this ‘transitional’ phase that’s doing my head in. We are in limbo. We still share our house until I move into my apartment. In so many ways our lives are still the same. I got sick again this week – such a me thing to do – and that was the sign for both of us that we needed to move things along a little bit quicker. My psychosomatic body always tells us when I'm not dealing well. Thank god for exBoyfriend, he is a true saint. He knows my flaws better than anyone. We’ve plotted the next five weeks so that we aren’t sharing our house as much, luckily we have that option – so much easier if one of us isn’t sleeping on the lounge.
And I need to get used to not having exBoyfriend to rely on 24/7. I’ve always considered myself fiercely independent but the last 6 years has definitely changed me, how could it not. In a strange way, deep down, I sense I'm excited about what the future holds but until we get through the next few weeks its really tough to feel that. How the hell do couples go through this if it is a one-sided or dramatic break-up? I have no idea. Must be excruciatingly hard. I have a whole new respect for anyone separating from their partner. I never really got how much it knocks you about until now.
One great thing about all of this is I have even more respect for exBoyfriend. It seems all that reality television hasn’t turned his brain to mush. He’s been my strongest support, how ironic is that. He has been amazing in every respect. It's also a brilliant sign that once we finally untangle our lives, down the track, we can be great friends. In fact, that’s the reason we were finally able to call it quits. We both knew we would be much happier as friends with our own lives. As shit as it is now, the signs are all good we’ll get there.
Note: I've deliberately taken off the Comment section for this post, sorry. Feels wrong to have replies to this cause thats not why I wrote it.
Note: I've deliberately taken off the Comment section for this post, sorry. Feels wrong to have replies to this cause thats not why I wrote it.
