And I hate goodbyes more than anything. The term “break up” is probably one of the worst terms in the English language, far underweight for what it can actually describe. I’ve always thought war metaphors were more appropriate.

What happened between you and what’s their name?

Oh, we blew up. We exploded. We dismembered. We died.

However you say it, whatever it is, it’s over.

It’s a strange thing, the dissolving of a relationship. It can take minutes or seconds, or dissolve itself slowly and achingly, drawn out over time. A cut with no platelets. It just bleeds out. I know for all that I’ve chronicled here, in this space, how open and honest I have been, that you might find it odd that I won’t write about it here. Won’t put it down in detail. But for this I want my privacy. This topic is mine, until I know what to say about it.

The truth is, for the past 8 or 10 months or so I’ve known it was over. And so did she. And we watched it slide away, slip beyond our grasps. Over the past month something changed. The one night stands, the myriad faces and bodies and limbs that I’ve used to bolster myself (and I’m not going to be ashamed about them, but I know the problems there nonetheless), have ended. They just stopped. I didn’t want them anymore. Didn’t need them anymore. I started to look at the women around me differently. With new eyes. Open to new experiences. Curious what would only happen if I would just… but I never did.

I also started to hate her, and that was something I never wanted to happen. It’s a difficult thing to say goodbye to someone you thought would be the last one you held on to. A remarkably difficult thing. My friends have failed to understand why I held on like I did for the past year and a half. I did because I believed. That’s the simple, and the only, answer there is. The only answer I needed. But over the past few months I’ve grew to hate her, to resent the whole thing, how it happened and how it went down. And the whole time I was moving on. Slowly. Just dipping a toe in at first until I found myself immersed.

There are three things you remember above all else about a relationship. How you met. The first time you explored her body. And how it ended. The rest of the memories come and go, stealing in from time to time. Some are hazy and static. Some are crystalline clear. But those three are permanent. At least they have been so for me with the 3 women I’ve loved in my life.

And I want to keep those memories the way they are, before more time and her own weaknesses rob them from me.

It may seem backwards to move on before you move on, to get to a point where you are ready to say goodbye, but that’s just how it worked out for me. It would have been different had we lived in the same state, in the same country even, but alternate locales dictate alternate endings. And that’s just the way it went.

So I’m not going to write about the how, but I think I’ve put down more than I wanted to anyway.

I have a date tomorrow night. I’m excited about it. Giddy, actually. Kind of thirteenish feeling. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I do know this. For over 2 and ½ years there has been only one person I allowed in. For the year and a half since I returned from Australia heartbroken I’ve done what I needed to heal and hold on. There have been women, but no one I was really interested in. No one I anticipated what it would be like to see again. She is the first one. I’m not grasping at straws, not replacing anything, not rebounding. For the first time I’m exciting, and willing to see what happens. We just had to say goodbye first.

I might not have the chance to write here tomorrow night. I could be too drunk, or get home too late, or whatever comes my way. As I said yesterday, the possibilities are infinite. And I will be out of town Friday, so I hope you’ll excuse my absence here, if that is what happens. I’ll write again when I return to New York Sunday night.

Peace.