I thought our little wild time had just begun…

So Wednesday I got a haircut. Apparently the Breakup Haircut is a threat to hairdressers. Julie, my hairdresser, with whom I have a very warm relationship, was hesitant to take off too much. It’s okay, I told her, I swear I had been thinking about this before I broke up with him, and it’s not as if I’m going all Brittany.

We didn’t go too drastic.

So how this breakup went…

We had spoken that Friday night, where I had planned to approach him with this notion of cutting back or taking some kind of break, only I couldn’t do it. I knew what was best for me, but I couldn’t make the move.

The thing is, nothing had happened to set this off. It was a series of tiny, nearly noiseless occurrences, most of them that Joe is not even aware of (some he is) that just started stacking up on my chest and before I knew it I was having a hard time breathing. But none of them were particularly new or out of character.

After our conversation on Friday, I was unable to return to normal. Everything I wrote about following that conversation; all the questions of Will I be able to stop relying on Joe’s presence and Can I break the habit of Joe were already set in motion. I spent that weekend as sad as I have ever been. And I was staring at the phone, wishing it would ring, heartbroken that it wasn’t ringing, but in that weird limbo place where I didn’t really want to talk to him, and didn’t know if I would have anything to say to him. Everything was different for me. And when he would finally call (as he always eventually does) nothing would be different for him. And I didn’t know how that was going to sit with me.

About the phone calling quantity/balance… here is what I have finally figured out about this relationship. I get out of it exactly what I put into it. to a point. If I call less, I hear back less. If I call more, I hear back more. There is a limit, obviously, to how much I can ‘get out of’ this guy, but it always, always starts with me. And that, my friends, is what I just can’t do anymore.

(And that, by the way, was not the case in the beginning. I remember how I would want to call him, but really what I wanted was to hear from him, and so I would wait, because the joy of receiving is so much sweeter, and he would always call soon. Our timing, our schedule of interest and desire, was the same. See, I watch for signs, in the beginning, and I read this one clearly. And then it changed.)

(And, by the way, I remember the day it changed. We were discussing our relationship, months and months ago, last summer. And I referred to ‘nightly phone calls’ as being a ‘given’, because, for quite a while, unless one of us was off the books unavailable, we were speaking nightly, with equally distributed initiation. And Joe said to me I don’t consider nightly phone calls a given. And from that night forward, I heard from him less. The lesson I learned, but obviously, not well enough: Joe does what Joe is happy doing, until he considers it an obligation. And then he can’t be happy doing it, even if it makes him happy.)

I spun myself into quite a depressive state, and no, it wasn’t all Joe. I was in pretty bad shape. Really. Bad shape.

He called late Sunday afternoon. Classic Joe. He was calling to say he’d not really slept (he’d been to a bachelor party the night before) and was going to sleep so if I was planning on calling, don’t call until later.

This was so absurd to me. Again, he didn’t know that for me, everything had changed, and that I hadn’t planned on calling later. He certainly didn’t know I’d been crying practically all day. But also–he was calling to tell me not to call? I figured out that in Joe-speak, he was calling to check in. But here I was translating again. This is my trap with Joe. Everything I do is reading between the lines. And so much of what I have been reading is that he is more of a boyfriend than he says he is. And I need to not do that anymore. So you know what? Unless I hear I am calling to check in, I am going to have to assume that all he means is I’m calling to say Don’t call.

Exhausted.

There is some texting later that night, but no talking.

Monday night he calls.

And I can’t handle it. The corner has been turned. I don’t feel comfortable speaking to him with the love and trust I have had for so many months. I start talking about what my weekend had been like, and then I stop; I can’t finish sentences. He also does this thing where he had asked about this bad experience I’d had all weekend, and in the middle of describing it, he totally changed the subject to something lighter. That was weird. And not good. And I very abruptly ended the call.

And I called an hour later… similar to Friday night. Still no plan, but I knew I needed a break. This chapter is over, is what I told him.

I had no intention of solidly breaking up with him. But by the time we got off the phone, an hour and a half later, it was pretty clear to me that we’d broken up. Breaking up with options, is how I finally (albeit loosely) defined it.

It’s been over a decade since I broke up with someone who I wanted terribly to be with. And although the circumstances were, of course, very different, as I lay there in my bed wailing, I was astounded by the physical impression the last time had left in me. I felt sick in my stomach and a thousand other sensations, but it was the exact same feeling. This is what breaking up with someone you love feels like.

I cried most of the next day at work. In many ways I was brilliantly functional, just with pauses for crying.

I spoke to Joe that night. It was more casual, lighter. He was packing; leaving for Florida to visit his parents for a week. I was already doing better, and speaking to him felt comforting; better than the harshness of ‘no contact’. But I was also more distant and skeptical… more critical. I’m already viewing Joe in more of an ‘ex’ way than I’d anticipated… he’s starting to look more like someone who will simply not cut it for me. I’m no longer looking at Joe through the eyes of someone trying to see what works, and more of his foibles are jumping out at me as problems. As I’ve said, I don’t know what I will want to or be able to maintain… I haven’t been in contact with him (tiny bit of emailing) since that conversation. His being in Florida is more of a mental break for me, because although he is busy with his parents, I could find opportunities to speak with him if I wanted to. It’s not really all that different than when he is his usual 200 miles away from me. But I’m using it and riding it.

In the category of How am I doing; Really well. I can’t help but being reminded of last year, of Eric. Most people do not understand that relationship–the intensity of a platonic love with a 22 year old mostly gay boy–and I barely understand it myself. but his closing the door on me brought me to my knees.

And this love with Joe, it hurts, but not like that. Why?

Because I have known every day that this could end. Because I have loved Joe as hard as has been appropriate, but I have remained guarded.

With Eric, I never saw the danger, and I certainly never saw his departure coming, so I loved with full abandon. And afterwards, when he cut off all communication… that is torture to me. Joe will never do that. That’s an advantage to his passivity.

Interesting thing… they say love is limitless. Certainly I have heard many a parent say that they didn’t know how much they could love until their child was born. And then they feared they could never love a second child as much as the first, until the second one came along. It just keeps expanding.

The more time I spent with Joe, the closer I felt to him, and the more I loved him. But at the same time, to protect myself, I was holding back more, and simultaneously distancing myself. Like a pendulum, gaining velocity (if that’s what pendulums gain). More love on one end… more restraint on the other.

Tired.

A few items on the inventory:

• We were supposed to go to the Crystal Fox together. We were actually supposed to go last time I was down there, but he… didn’t wake up early enough, most days. It’s a metaphysical shop near-ish his house, one I’d always wanted to go to.
• We were always looking to improve the sex. No complaints, but lots of opportunity to add-on. There were some plans.
• We were going to do a wine tasting.
• He was going to bring his snake next visit and take care of my slow-draining tub.
• I wanted to hike with him on the farm.
• I never got to ride on his new motorcycle (this one really hurts.)
• We were going to try to hit a trance-dance in Manhattan. This was mostly for him, and it was something I really wanted to try with him.
• Oh, and actually, we were going to go to the Trader Joe’s Wine Store in the city the next time he came up.
• There were a lot of meals and recipes we talked about cooking together/for each other, and a lot of restaurants we wanted to bring each other to.
• He was going to meet Albert in a few weeks.
• I never got to hear Bruce’s band.

Bruce and Nancy are a couple who just got married… they had lived in the farmhouse that Joe lives in (it’s sort of a commune) but recently bought their own place. I love them. Also, they witnessed Joe-and-Roberta as couple more than anyone else did… they were still living there for all but my most recent visit down there, and even then, we went to their new house for dinner. In general though, I was careful about the relationships I formed with his friends. Again… always aware that we were not permanent. I am in touch with Bruce and Nancy.

The list is actually not too bad, partly because of my consciousness that this could always end at any time. I just wasn’t thinking it would be now. I really thought we would hit festival season together.

I was really hoping we could go to festivals together.

I was certainly hoping that I could have a boyfriend this year for my birthday.

But it keeps coming down to… he just wasn’t my boyfriend. What has sometimes sounded like silly semantics, finally hit me in the head with a resounding THUD.

And, umm… ow.