"Leaf by leaf and page by page, throw this book away."
I just watched a three year relationship go up in smoke in the space of seventy-two hours. It would have been an interesting anthropological study if it hadn't been my relationship.
The details are tedious to relate, but basically my girlfriend isn't comfortable sleeping with me anymore. Phrases like "There's just no spark" were actually used here, and I can't really think of anything more upsetting and frustrating. It's something I can't change, something I have zero control over. The logical part of my brain is saying things like "well, you can't change it so you might as well accept it, move on and hope that one day you'll be friends." But then my emotional center kicks in, blaring things like "YOU LOVE THIS GIRL, IDIOT. DO SOMETHING."
And then there's the fact that 'moving on' is a tad difficult, seeing as how we live together in a very small apartment. Every time I walk into the place I'm hit by the very essence of her. We're lucky enough to have two beds, but they're about four feet apart and I've grown so accustomed to sleeping next to somebody that I spend most of my nights staring at the ceiling, fighting the urge to crawl into bed next to her sleeping body.
I haven't been sleeping much.
And still, I cling to the irrational thought that one of these days she's going to change her mind, that she's going to realize what we had and what this whole thing is doing to our friendship. I don't want to even see her for a long, long time, and yet I still want her (the former her) to be here (to be home) when I get off of work every night.
The ironic thing is, when she was away at her internship we both had similar experiences. She discovered swing dancing and cheap movies, I started hanging out in bars and eating lunch in Central Park. We both remembered how to make friends and how to live separately. I saw this as a way of strengthening our relationship, a way of relieving some of the pressure of being in each other's company all the time, a way of enjoying each other's company more and having more patience for each other's stories. She saw this as a symbol of what she's missing, a sign of our inherent incompatibilities and a glimpse into an alternate future that in no way included me. Funny how the same data can yield completely disparate results.
What kind of home do you have when you don't want to sleep there?