Lovers & Friends

It’s only been 10 days since we’ve broken up but it feels like an eternity.

Decided to move out of my apartment. I figure its an opportune time- I got a housing offer for cheaper, and before we broke up, I wouldn’t have considered taking this place, but like I said, its an opportune time. Must be a sign. He plays baseball at the same park I go running, and for right now, I’d rather not run into him anyway.

Surrounded by boxes and cleaning supplies, its a beautiful day, I should be distracted but for some reason, I’ve just as sad as I was the day we broke up. He’s texted me, called me since, and we’ve had good conversation, but I wasn’t as sad as I feel now. It’s odd.

After writing yesterday, I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall today as I was cleaning out some closets.

I’m just sad all over again. Its not even a physical yearning, I miss everything about him. I miss his very essence.

Yes, he broke my heart, but he had very good reason to. In fact, the reason why we broke up proves how much we love each other, which SUCKS.

The reason? We both are extremely busy people- me with school, internships, and other campus involvements, and him working towards the top of his company in his region, then going corporate.

We wanted each other to be at our best, and though he wanted more time with me, with all my involvements he felt he was keeping me  back from shaping my own future.

At first, all the time I spent traveling to see him, all the money I spent on those expenses (I was too proud for him to pay for anything travel-related), all the nights I gave up with my friends to spend time with him, the nights I should’ve been in the library, I felt I was doing a whole lotta work to be with him, to work on us.

When we talked, when he said he felt bad about all the time he was taking up, I felt he was throwing ALL OF IT back into my face. I felt as if he was saying, “this isn’t good enough. I want more.”

And for the longest time, I was angry. So incredibly furious, that my effort, my work into this relationship was being flung back at me, like it was a waste.

And so then I went back between anger and acceptance: I know that I want to travel, I know I have career options that can take me all over the States, and abroad, depending on the direction I take.

And for him, I met him at a time when he was SO resistant to having a relationship, especially with someone still in college and not yet on her career path. I also knew he didn’t want to give up his bachelor life.

But things changed, and we were so deeply in love with each other.

He didn’t stray. I didn’t lose interest. In fact, when we broke up I was so much more in love with him than I had ever been, and he felt the same way.

But something wasn’t working. And if he was feeling the same insecurities about us, if this is what we were going to be struggling through every few months, then I knew its something it couldn’t be fixed, at least right now. He and I are not going to be on the same path for a while, and thats what was straining us, breaking us.

I couldn’t reassure him this time around.

So we’re done.

He wants to be friends. He’s my best friend. How do you break up with your best friend?

But for now, I can’t be his friend. I can’t be his anything. Because it hurts too much. How do you go have dinner with someone, how do you go see a movie with someone you’re so madly in love with and care so deeply about without wanting to hold their hand, without stroking their arm, without kissing them?

I fucking can’t do that. I want to know that he’s happy, healthy, that he had a good day at work, that his shoulders aren’t aching, that he’s eaten properly for the day.  I want so desperately to take care of him, not out of obligation but because I’m so fucking in love with him I want to be there for him.

He’s a grown man, I know that. I’m not responsible for him, I know that. I just want to be there for him, and I can’t just “be his friend” so easily, so quickly, after spending the last couple years caressing his skin, smelling him, rubbing his temples, kissing his fingertips just because he’s so goddamn beautiful and I cherish and adore him.

This is the first time I’ve sit down and let myself think about him since we broke up. And the feelings of nausea, sore throat, and actual heartbreak are back.

It doesn’t feel good. I thought I was fine, I thought things got easier as you got older, went through more relationships. I saw a future with O. I haven’t been able to say that for former boyfriends.  Not since my first heartbreak, not since my high school love had I felt like this about someone else. The good ones are hard to find.

And now we’re no longer together because we want to grow independently, to better ourselves.

I thought I was fine when in fact I’m still broken.