quoting noel coward

“I am no good at love…

For I feel the misery of the end

In the moment that it begins

And the bitterness of the last good-bye

Is the bitterness that wins.”

Noel Coward

the one that got away

I guess it’s time for a eulogy after all.

When I cut the final ties with Aaron, I spent the next several days reassuring other people that I was fine. That yes, I was sad, ending a relationship is always sad, but that this had been coming. And that was true.

Our relationship had been dying a slow death for months. We were slipping farther and farther away from each other with every day. I took a big step when PF was here by taking down his photos and hiding or tucking away other personal belongings. That had more to do with PF than with Aaron.

But after PF left, the only thing I put back was Aaron’s photo that had always sat on my piano. I left the other snapshots and silly things hidden away. I wasn’t ready to cut things off yet, but I knew that those things needed to stay hidden. It took several weeks for me to finally take down the photo on my desk at work.

It was time. It had been coming. I’d cried my tears and I’d grieved and I’d gotten angry. It was a fit of anger and sadness that prompted me to fire off the fatal text. The one that said, “let’s just call a spade a spade and just be friends.” That entire weekend was about ripping off band aids.

After he and I had cleared the air, I took down his photo from my piano. I went through my bathroom cabinets and threw away his toothbrush and his razors and his hair products. I took his cologne and his t-shirt and the keys to the apartment we shared and packed them in a box and placed it underneath my bed. My ex-box. The one that contains a handful of mementos from relationships past.

I deleted text messages and emails. I made the break up facebook official so I wouldn’t have to keep having the same conversation over and over. I was done. And it was easier than I ever thought it would be.

I didn’t expect to hear from him again. And then I did. We’ve had a handful of conversations, via text, since the break-up. Mostly about industry related things or about mutual friends. They were non-events, those conversations. Simply things that happened.

Tonight, I had a conversation with PF. About a number of random things. And in that conversation Aaron’s name came up. And suddenly it hit me that he is gone.  After PF signed off and headed to bed, I drew a hot bath. I like to cry in the bath. Tonight, I cried my goodbye tears. The ones I thought had already been cried.

Because I loved Aaron. Because a part of me always will. And I will miss him. I will miss his smile and his laugh and the way he would sing to me. I’ll miss the way he pushed me intellectually. I’ll miss sharing the New York Times over breakfast. I’ll miss the way he would never let me go to sleep upset. The way he would grab me and pull me to him when I was crying. I’ll miss the way he would get excited about things, like a little kid.

When our relationship was very new, I remember talking to one of my friends. She was saying how wonderful it was to see me so happy. She could tell that my heart was opening up again. I remember so clearly standing in her office, playing with the necklace I was wearing and saying, “All I know is that he’s either the one or he’s going to be the one that got away.”

It’s not like any big egregious thing happened. We just had too much working against us. A baby that he was trapped into having. Distance. Incompatible schedules. And true, some different priorities. But even in the end, it was clear that neither of us really wanted to let go. Even in that final conversation, transitioning from lovers to friends, we ended by saying “I love you.”

He told me once he would love me until the end of time. And maybe that will always be a little bit true. But the greater truth is that he’s the one that got away.

through the haze of exhaustion

I should be doing other things right now. I should be dusting off my resume and writing out my CV. I should be finishing up notes for the interviews I’m conducting tomorrow. I’m overdue on book and toy reviews at my other site. My laundry still needs to be put away and there’s one full load of dishes still waiting on me. PF gave me pretty strict orders to go to bed early tonight because I’ve been burning at both ends for the last three weeks.

And yet here I am. Because I’ve missed this place. Because I’ve got so much to say. I’ve had a million thoughts floating around in my head I’ve just been too exhausted of late to write about any of it. The last three weeks have been insane. I fired someone. I broke up with Aaron (or mostly, he won’t engage in the actual conversation, but I’ve moved on). I’ve cut off all the casual, random hook-up centric relationships in my life. Chuck spent several days in the shop getting a major repair. I started the vetting process of joining a board of directors. And I’ve been laying some serious groundwork at my actual job. Positioning myself for a next step even as I hunker down for the long haul at that same place. I’ve been playing the game and putting in the face time and simplifying where I can. And this is me just swinging into my busy season. See why I’m tired?

Not to say that all of a sudden today I’m perky and so I decided it was time to start getting caught up. On the contrary. I’m still exhausted. Yesterday I slept for all but 8 hours of the day and still had to drag myself kicking and screaming out of bed at 8:45 this morning. I had one of those days where I did a lot but didn’t get a lot done. My truck was loaded and then unloaded only to rinse and repeat. More mileage was added to my expense report. A report that is already up over $100 in two weeks time. That’s a lot for me.

So why am I here tonight? I’m not exactly sure. Except that something feels different. My energy is different. Maybe it’s because I’ve started to see the fruits of my labor. Maybe it’s just because I’m finally on the back end of life-transition-funk. Or maybe it’s that I spent time this weekend with strong women who embrace me for who I am and inspire me to keep reaching for what I want. Women who reminded me why I shouldn’t settle and affirmed that I deserve only the best.

And maybe it’s because I’m basking in having a partner. Romantic and otherwise. Not just a boyfriend, but someone who wants to be a real part of my life and my future. Who nudges me firmly when I’m caught selling myself short. Who makes me feel beautiful and smart. Who makes me feel scared and vulnerable and safe all at the same time.  Someone who makes me feel wanted. It’s been so long since that happened I can’t even remember that it ever did.

There’s more to come about all of this. But for the moment, this was enough. I have interview questions to finish and a date with my pillow.

anniversaries

It occurred to me the other day that PF and I don’t have an anniversary. There’s nothing to count forward from or backward to. It’s one of the hallmarks of a relationship that begins on-line.

Do you start marking time from the first e-mail? From the first invitation to meet? From the drunken text that hints that one of you is falling? The day those three words are whispered into the dark before you both hang up the phone? You could celebrate the anniversary of your first meeting. But when you’ve already traveled some distance together before that meeting happens, it’s not quite the same.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. BOF and I have never had an anniversary. I can approximate when we began talking only because of other things happening in my life at that time. I remember distinctly when the dynamic in our relationship shifted because it happened the night before my divorce finalized. It’s never been an issue that we didn’t have a strict anniversary. We do birthdays. We occasionally acknowledge the passage of time, usually as an afterthought.

Aaron and I have an anniversary. But it’s a date he’ll never remember. And when I bring it up he teases me about it being the anniversary of our first coupling. And really that’s what it is. A day to commemorate the night when we got drunk and stoned and had sex. A night when he fell asleep and I slipped out, not bothering to leave him my phone number because I knew I’d see him the next day at work. Not really much of an anniversary.

I was trying to remember the other day, my anniversaries with LH, how we spent them. Quite honestly the only one that sticks out with any sort of clarity is the first. Well, the first two. We were married the day after the anniversary of our first date. Our first wedding anniversary he very sweetly arranged a spa package and the delivery of flowers. He wanted it to be a secret. But he was deployed to Saudi Arabia and I saw the charges on the credit card bill. I still thought it was sweet. But on the actual day, he was still in Saudi and I was having an affair. I can’t remember any of the others.

Anniversaries are dangerously close to Valentine’s Day for me any way. A day for me to foolishly get my hopes up only for them to be dashed. We all know how I have a tendency to be disappointed. Prone to sadness, so I’m told.

So maybe it’s just as well that PF and I don’t have an anniversary date. Clearly my track record is not good. And even if we did have a day that was ours, because of our situation the likelihood of us ever being together on that day is fairly slim. And I don’t need another one of those. A day that is supposed to be special but instead ends up feeling empty and alone because I can’t be with someone I love.

I’d rather that our special day be any day that he and I are together. I’d rather just let the time pass. Somehow date stamping the start to our relationship acknowledges that there was a life before. And in my heart I feel like I’m returning to something, not starting anew. I’d rather have that feeling than some aribtrary date marked on a calendar.

favorite moments

I’m still awash in memories from our time together. Everything seems like such a blur. I’ve been trying to take notes so that it can all be retold for the other blog. I fear it will be a series of vignettes, select moments, and very little storytelling.

I asked him if he had any favorite moments. If anything stood out. It was still one big blur for him when I asked. Later I told him that I had a favorite moment. Two favorites. Those will be easy to recount on the other blog. There’s plenty of explicit detail to share.

But the truth is there are two other very little moments that are standing out. In their own way. Moments that are much too precious to be shared in the other place. They will only be written of here.

He was already in the living room. Sitting on my couch. I’d padded into the room wearing only his shirt. Hair touseled with sleep and sex. I stood near him and leaned over to kiss him. He put his arm around me and pulled me on to his lap. That’s the moment. Perched in his lap with his big arm around my waist. If I hadn’t already been in love that would have made me fall.

The other one defies explanation. We were simply readying for bed. In the tiny vanity area outside my bathroom. I was standing at the sink brushing my teeth. He was behind me. I could see him in the mirror, towering over me. Reaching over and around me for toothbrush and toothpaste. And in the bustle of tooth care the warmth of his chest would brush my bare back. It seems like nothing. The kind of inconsequential contact that happens a hundred times in a day. But it felt so intimate.