La Nouvelle Journaliste: 2008

Wednesday, November 26

It all just hit me tonight. I think I shelved the idea of properly resolving the end of my three year relationship with a guy I had made a home with, not to mention over time weaving bits of my life into his so thoroughly it was more one than two.

My cousin Andy, who I live with in London, said to me about a month ago: your relationship was more like a marriage, and so the end of it will be that much more prolific in your life. I think, since I was the one who ended it, I thought I would seamlessly move into my new flat, into a new life and simply recover from the shock of piecing myself back together, the single me, which I was rather happy and desperate to be for a long time. Instead, I found myself walking home from the tube tonight, three months after it ended, with this weight dragging behind me, reducing me to tears.

Totally unaware of my neighbors walking past me, now sobbing as I reach the steps down to my flat, fumbling with my key to get inside so I can curl my shoulders over and put my face in my hands in the unlit lounge. I went directly up to my room and typed an e-mail. My heart on a page, my apologies, my regrets, my grateful thanks for a man who loved me so well. The tears flowed freely in the privacy of my room, the door shut, the house quiet. How do I make sense of leaving that entire life behind me? Those friends, those places and your family who I love so dearly? It may have been my choice to separate, but I mourn the loss of you in my life as if you took it away from me.

I know I made the right decision to break it off, and still there I sat, entirely and overwhelmingly mourning the end of a relationship I thought I had come to terms with as I put the words on the page. I feel that I left part of me in your hands and it's your part now, something I'll forever be without. I'm sorry that I left, I think to myself, so deeply saddened in the feeling that I abandoned you. Every warm moment we ever made now images in my mind, fresh and painful. It was so good, I think, why did I leave? But I was no longer in love. I knew that I wasn't the right woman for you.

The strange thing is that I am seeing someone new. I have been for about a month now. And before him, I think it was more convenient to shelve the feeling of deep disappointment over the end of my last, and most serious, relationship. But now I know that it is futile to be with anyone so long as I harbor this weight over things left unresolved. In fact, in some way I think my acknowledgement that I still have feelings to work through and things to say to really