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a heart that beats as both syphon and reservoir

NP: Marillion - "Holidays In Eden" bonus disc

Mostly cut & pasted from an email and edited a bit, but I'm so fatigued right now I can't go through writing it all out again from scratch. So here it goes...

Well, it's come to this. It's over. Sarah and I split up. Well, more precisely, I ended it with her. It's funny, I spent more or less every hour all last week agonizing over what I wanted to do. She and I had a long conversation on Thursday night, and then again on Friday morning. I went out for a walk on Friday afternoon, and suddenly my thinking became crystalline...it all made absolute sense. I started pondering what I wanted to do, how I was going to handle it -- if I was being rational, certain, everything. The question I kept asking myself was: what do I want out of life? What makes me happy? What do I value? My answer? People. Relationships. My friends and family. If Sarah can't be my girlfriend, my lover, my emotionally available partner, well, I have to be where I can be with who and what I value. I dunno...I don't believe that there's anything after this life. This is all we have, and if you're not living your life to its fullest, or doing what makes you happiest and most fulfilled, well then you might as well be dead now. Dramatic? Perhaps. But it rang and it rings so true right now.

So...I came back from my walk. I was making guacamole for a barbecue we were supposed to go to in the evening. The whole time my legs felt like jello and were wobbly and shaking. I couldn't stand going on with all of this for another week, day, hour, anything. I realized I'd forgotten a lime for the guacamole, so I asked Sarah if she wanted to take a drive to the store. So we did, and right as we got there, I said it...that I couldn't go on like this. I gave her one last chance to set things right, or to keep working on it. I asked her: "can you reassure me? Can you tell me that you'll make me an important part of your life? Can you tell me it'll all be worth the sacrifice?" She couldn't, at least not definitively, not the way I needed to hear and needed to know. So, fitfully, I ended it. I told her I couldn't go on like we had been, that we couldn't be together anymore.

Oh god... And then she went to the BBQ, I stayed home, watched but not really watched the Cardinals game, and eventually gave up and called my folks and spilled my guts to them. I eventually got a hold of Dylan and walked all the way over to his house, had a few beers out on his front porch and talked it out. Which really, really helped. But then I had to walk home, and Sarah was here, and we had to deal with all of that... We talked again all morning and early afternoon today before she had to leave and go to a GRE prep class. It was so hard, so painful, so impossible not to just reach out and comfort her when the tears and the emotions and the sorrow started coming out.

It's so weird...my heart is shattered into a thousand pieces, and I'm a big ball of anxiety and not knowing how to feel or act, but at the same time, I have this intense, amazing mental clarity. I'm not angry at Sarah, and I'm not resentful, pissed off, accusing, anything. I'm just tired, and more than anything, I'm disappointed. I know it'll be OK, she'll succeed and I'll succeed, and that it's for the best. But it feels like there should've been another way!! But, I'm happy and proud of myself for making the decision, realizing what's important to me, and standing up for myself. Like I said the other day, I refuse to destroy myself over all this.

So, now all of the messy logistical stuff starts. Sarah's going to stay with her aunt & uncle on the other side of the bay for a while, starting Tuesday, and then look for a roommate to share this apartment that we're in right now. In the meantime, I'm heading back to St. Louis. I'm gonna stay with my folks for a while until I get a job kicking, and then once that's in place, an apartment of my own back in the city itself. Actually, I'm hoping to have a job lined up, or at least some prospects, before I leave. In fact, I just applied to a kick-ass job at Wash U kind of like my current one at Berkeley! If I got that I'd be a pig in shit. A former colleague of mine at UC Berkeley who recently moved back to the midwest and took a job in the fundraising unit at Wash U mentioned a bunch of times that they were looking for someone like me to do what I do for Berkeley, so I've also sent him my resume and told him to spread the word. Fingers crossed! I also know I could go back to Lockheed Martin and pretty easily get my old job back, or something similar. But I'm not so sure I want to do that anymore...I've really enjoyed my transition from swords to plowshares. But it's reassuring to know it's there if all else fails.

But yeah, in a day or two Sarah will be at her aunt & uncle's, I'll have this place to myself for awhile...weeks, months? I guess however long it takes Sarah to sort out the roommate situation (she has some prospects), and then once she does that, I'll put in my notice with UC Berkeley, and maybe soon after (I'm setting Labor Day as my latest desirable moving date), pack up my car and drive back to the STL, to my folks, my friends, and honestly...where I think my heart and my soul is. If nothing else, I know it'll help me feel whole again, help me feel the part of me that I lost 3 years ago.

This is just so hard and so weird...it's shocking but it isn't. I almost think I knew for some time how this was going to play out, especially after Sarah told me "I don't have time for you" and after all those arguments and discussions about what part of her life I fit into. It all clicked into place when I realized the other day what I really wanted, that I could have it, and that I didn't have to live my life miserable. Not after knowing that I've tried as absolutely hard as I could to make things right between Sarah and I. I tried *so* fucking hard. So hard! All the time, for three years. But I can't do it anymore. I can't. And I won't.

It's funny, I'm making a St. Louis visit from July 23-28 (booked before all of the above went down), and I can't wait to simply spend some down time with my family and friends, take in a Cards game, BBQ, relax, and just rejuvenate my body and my spirit. I need it so badly right now it's not even funny.

So, right now everything is chaos, but it's a beautiful maelstrom. It'll all settle down, and the gnawing, slow-mo passage of time will return to normal. It's just going to take time, fortitude, and patience. It'll be OK, and I can't wait to get back where I belong.

then / now