Neither of us admits it openly...
... but it's over. We spent the weekend packing Alex's things to put into one of those Door-2-Door boxes - which was, of course, outside in the driving/pouring/miserable rain, with the help of his roommates. I think he's trying to keep all his options open, because he never made any remarks about me doing anything to bring us closer together. He doesn't say "you only have to say the word", he doesn't say Austin is a decent market for IT work, or that the Alamo could replace the Brattle for my offbeat movie house needs.

It's because, I think, neither of us wants to make the move that sets a break-up off. We're taught that such things are awful, that they mean we've failed somehow. That once you've committed to saying "I love you" in the present tense, you've also obliged yourself to the future tense. Or that being in a relationship is so natural, that once one has started, it should just gain momentum like a stone rolling down a hill, and if something happens to stop that momentum, you must have screwed up, especially if you can't identify any one part of it that is obviously doomed from earlier on.

I don't think that's the case. I think the experience of being in a good relationship is so good at the time - and it really is, having that kind of trust and closeness and somebody with whom to share the things we love - that when it falls apart for whatever reason, we try and recreate that, assuming that we know enough from one big break-up to keep it from happening again. It resets not just our goals, but our expectations.

I might be kind of lucky, in that I've been able to have my expectations re-reset, but with the experience to recognize that that's what's happening. Three years ago, I knew sod-all about dating as a woman, and I think it's helped me to realize that we never truly stop learning how to do this. Every relationship is a learning experience, and not every one is going to have the potential to last forever and ever. Point-blank, Alex and I don't have what it takes to work around this obstacle. That's just how it is, and I'm good with that. The past few months haven't been wasted; they've just been what they were, no more, and no less.

Of course, I haven't delivered this speech to Alex. I don't want to say "you're not worth uprooting my life for", even if it's the literal truth. He doesn't want to say "you're not worth staying for". I know it's the truth, but I know it will hurt to hear it. So we do what reasonable people do instead - we spend Saturday and Sunday night having great good-bye sex, with visits to favorite shops, restaurants, theaters, and the like in between. We resolve to exchange emails, and we all know full well that sometime, maybe next month or maybe next year, we'll each use those emails to say we've met someone new, we don't want to compare this new person to each other... It's just different, and this is easier, and I hope you'll like him/her when you meet.

And I'm good with that. I hope he meets someone nice. My ego would just prefer it not be tomorrow.

-Marti
- posted 11:32 PM - - (archive use only)