July 05, 2005

9:28 a.m.

What Makes It Make Sense

It occurred to me this morning why the word "breakup" felt so awkward to me. It's the word Steve used, so I adopted it. I realized that I'm seeing this more as the continuing evolution of our relationship -- like, it's not over, it's just still developing, we're still figuring out what it is -- and he sees it as the end of the one outcome. It supports my feeling that we were in very different places with it.

When I went to bed last night I sank into a little nostalgia though. There was a period when I thought this had potential to go on and on. I ask myself if I have a fatal flaw; if I'm sabotaging something. But the list is too long, and I've learned that when it passes a certain length it's just worse if you keep trying and trying. I'm being a little vague and I don't feel like going into more details. I'm almost glad that I'm sadder today, though. It's as though the stronger he is, the more I'm allowed to feel my sadness, and the whinier and weepier he is the more detached I have to be just to get through it. He also said at one point that, if I'd been really eager to move in soon, he'd probably have backed off. Is this a way that we find balance? Dancing back and forth around the middle point, leaning in, leaning out?

I've thought a lot about Will, too, and remembered how attached I was to him and how utterly, immeasurably sad it was to think that what I'd dreamed of with him simply wasn't going to happen -- that he was living in a different world, one where my feelings and my passion didn't exist. It so illustrates Buddha's teaching that desire and attachment are at the root of suffering -- but what do you do when you're in it? You can't just step out unless you're a pretty extraordinary person.

Maybe it's the work you do between bouts of suffering that makes it make sense.