Sometimes I think that this is the craziest way to do it.  Buy a house, then break up.  Go to New Zealand for his mom’s funeral and realize before you even board the plane in Chicago that maybe this isn’t such a good idea.  Maybe he isn’t going to open up and share this experience with you.  Hasn’t he shown that he’s just not that kind of guy?  But you hope, and each new situation seems like a new opportunity for something….. well….. new.  Yet it always ends up here.  Right here.  With me wondering what the heck I’m doing here.  Again.  Giving myself to someone and something that I’m not even sure I even want.

Sometimes you’ve gotta step totally in before you know.  You watch from the sidelines and you think about it, you weigh it, you discuss it, but eventually, you just have to play.  There’s no other way.  You’ve gotta make a move; then, you’ll know.  I love him, but I can’t be with him.  And today, that hurts a little again.  My mom wants to know if he’s coming for Christmas, and the neighbor wants to know if we’re moving in and although I feel clear when I say “no”, I also feel a little sad.  Like the sound of some glass breaking.  Like some disillusionment.  Like if only I had tried harder.  But I don’t want to try harder.  After all this time, it’s either happening or it’s not.  I gotta let it go.

It’s tough.  Almost as tough as sanding the floors for the last 3 days.  To be around him feels as though I’m crossing myself sometimes.  Like I’m breaking a promise.  Like I know what I want, but I settle.  Like I don’t really feel that I’m worth it.  This pattern goes way back.  It crossed my mind driving home tonight that it’s like I feel I owe someone.  A debt.  A trade.  That I alone, myself, am not enough….so I have to add something.  Tip the scales.  A bonus.  It’s weird.  It’s also somewhat familiar.  And it’s a rude awakening.  And it needs to stop.

Otherwise, I’m just a whore.

Sometimes it doesn’t sync up again.  Sometimes you tell someone you can’t do it anymore and they don’t try to change anything and it doesn’t get any better.  Sometimes the road that curved to lead you together is now drifting you apart.  And you see signs of it everywhere.  And there’s nothing you can do about it.

“After five months of us saying we didn’t know what we were going to do with the house we bought – flip it, live in it, rent it – it’s become apparent that living together in it is not an option.”  I tell her.

“Does he know that?” she asks me.

“Know which, that I can’t live with him or that he can’t live with me?”

“Both” I guess

“I’m pretty sure he does.”

It’s not easy buying a house with someone you’ve been on and off with for nine years, then going to his mother’s funeral on the other side of the world and realizing that it’s probably not going to work out for you two.  Then trying to fix up the house and trying to hold out hope that maybe somehow it will bring you closer, but all it does is show you how different you really are.  But then there’s a glimmer, you feel heard and things change.  So you don’t renew your lease and you move in with him until the house is livable – a shower at least – and he’s great at that.  He’s great at those big moments of needing to get your shit out and into the garage waiting to make the house a home.  Practical stuff.  But all the emotional stuff, forget it.  Can’t share it, can’t understand it, and doesn’t really have time for it.  So when it’s time to put some things from your packed bag into his dresser drawer, you end up taking them back out again because it just doesn’t feel right.

It’s not easy deciding to sleep on an air mattress on the floor surrounded by dust and drops of texture from the ceiling but it feels a little bit easier than that.

And I can diffuse the intensity.  I’m learning that if I don’t participate in conflict then I don’t have to spend so much time complaining about it afterwards.  I’m learning to handle this with some gentleness and grace.  And that even though you’re in it as a partner with someone else, you’re actually still 100% responsible for it all.  If you find yourself looking out there, look within.

The only thing missing in any situation is what you have failed to bring to it, A Course in Miracles says.  It also says that you can’t be asked to give anything that you don’t already have.  Help me to rise to the occasion.  Help me to find and provide whatever it is I seek.

As I was unpacking today, I came across my box of Ketodol.  Ahhh, that brings up a great memory.  It was my third day in Italy, it was drizzling rain, and I was in pain.  My neck and shoulder were locked up and I could barely turn my head.  I went out for a pizza at the Piazza Navona (one of my favorite places) and walked around for a few hours.  On my way back to the hotel I popped into a pharmacy.  They tried to give me something like ibuprofen and I just shook my head no.  I had already tried that.  I asked for the next step up.  They told me to take it with food.  I said I had just eaten some gelato and did that count.

1. I love gelato.
2. This pistachio gelato was so homemade that sometimes, you bit into a little bit of shell.

No, gelato did not count.

So I went back to the hotel, which I was in alone now that my travel companion had abandoned me and flown home (the second one to do that), and took two.  I spent the afternoon drifting deeply into sleep and feeling the healing.  In the night, the drizzle turned into a storm and woke me as it fiercely blew open the shutters (the hotel had shutters, it was Rome) and the long, sheer curtains flew freely and wild.  It was a dramatic emphasis to what was occurring for me.

I awoke the next morning refreshed, renewed and without pain.  It was a new day, a new outlook on Rome and a new me.  I embraced that I was alone and I gave up my idea of needing to flee to Vienna to be with a friend because I had felt like I had somehow failed because I was now alone.

I thought that I had missed a day in this beautiful city by being in bed but I felt like I had gained something even more….and I couldn’t wait to explore!