twenty-something

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What a long, strange, wonderful, sad week it's been... They say "Quarter Life Crisis." I used to say, "Fuck you, Mayer-poser." But now...

My life is different than it was a week ago. I am different. And it's not just new glasses, a haircut, different facial hair, those lost five pounds. It's deeper. It's more profound. It's not just another birthday. It is a milestone.

I feel like I am -- or I'm at least becoming -- a whole person for the first time... in a long time? Ever? A change is gonna come. A change has happened, is happening.

But this change, it's not without it's growing pains.

"Duncan" and I broke up last night. 2 1/2 years. Over. Gone. Done. And though we've all heard it all before, this time is for real. The details? They don't matter. Not here. I hesitate to even write about this "news," to post it. But I realize I have to. Not for your sake, dear readers. And not for yours, Dunc. But for my own.

I am deeply sad and deeply hurt but, somehow, inside me, I know it is what needed to happen. Despite the pain, I made the right choice -- for both of us. I still love him -- that doesn't just stop instantly -- and I still want to believe in him. That he can come out, figure himself out, and become a whole person. That he can realize how great he really is and believe in himself. That I can do the same. And that, maybe, we can reconnect -- maybe not in love, but in friendship. Someday.

Belief. Makes things real. Makes things feel... feel alright.

* * *

Last night at 2a.m., restless, I found myself parked outside of his old dorm, the one he lived in our first months together. I found myself gazing up at his old window, remembering all the days I gazed out onto warm spring mornings while he still slept, the sun shining, the shuttle-buses noisy as they passed.

On the cosmic radio in his car, the album rock station I listened to played "Under the Milky Way" by The Church.

Wish I knew what you were looking for
Might have known what you would find...

I grimaced, hit SEEK. It found Alanis.

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you --

I teared up. SEEK.

Jack Johnson.

I can't always be waiting waiting on you
I can't always be playing playing your fool

What the fuck? Fed up with this creepy radio, I hit CD. It resumed in the middle of a song.

It was the Garden State soundtrack. The one I bought him at the Target in Minneapolis.

So let go, Jump in
Oh well whatcha waiting for?
It's alright
'Cause there's beauty
In the breakdown.

I shut the stereo off. I didn't cry, but I should have. Instead I made a noise, something so guttural it scared me. It was short and deep, so deep that it didn't sound like something that could ever come out of me. It felt like somebody's stabbed me in the gut.

I half expected the stereo to come to life. To play Hedwig.

That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.

I sat there in the car, my chest tight and my stomach sick. But I was numb on the outside, only tiny tingles of realization touching my skin, the tips just barely grazing me. It's over. I wanted to let loose that guttural howl, to scream out into the night, out at that dorm, out at the past, but I couldn't. I just couldn't. Instead, I headed home to my empty apartment, feeling truly alone for the first time in over two years.

* * * Breakups are melodramatic, folks. Mine especially. But don't worry. For fear of saying anything more that I will regret, either out of hurt or vulnerability, I don't think I will be speaking much about all this, from here on out, here on this blog.

But, despite all this... 2 1/2 years. Not wasted. I wish it could've ended better, differently, but...

But?

Absolutely no regrets.