Love story

This was supposed to be a love story.

I had it all imagined, all planned. I knew how it would start; with accidental eye contact across a crowded space. They'd be so captivated that even after I glanced away they would continue to watch me. They wouldn't be able to get enough, they'd have to know more, but I'd leave and they'd wonder and think about me and maybe some time would go by and they'd start to forget about the stranger they saw across the space but then right as I began to fade from their thoughts they'd see me again, somewhere else, and this time they'd strike up a conversation with me. They'd have to; the need to talk to me would be a pull they couldn't resist.

I'd be none the wiser, I wouldn't realize how completely I'd captivated them but we'd talk because there would be something about them that I liked, maybe the way their hair fell in front of their eyes, or their hands, or how they would pause and glance away and grin a little bit, just at the corner of their mouth. I'd enjoy the conversation, I'd want to talk more. So we would. I'd give them my number and we'd meet up for coffee, because I wouldn't be sure (even though they were) and we'd talk for hours.

Then days.

Then months.

And one night, in the quiet of the late hours, they'd whisper the confession that they'd loved me from the start, that they saw me one day and had to know more but they'd missed their chance. They'd wondered and regretted, and wished. And then they'd seen me again and couldn't miss another opportunity since it might have been their last. It would be the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to me. We'd make love and it would be better than anything a book or movie or show or song could make it. I would be their world and they would be mine.

We eventually moved in together, because that's what people do when they're in love and can picture a future together. You move in, you share space, you make space, because they matter and I can't imagine a future without them in it.

Things are a little rough at first because even though we're in love we're suddenly sharing personal space and there's some compromise and some adjustment. But we're in love so we adjust and we talk and we work things out. They stop leaving their dirty laundry in the bathroom after a shower, I put my dirty dishes in the dishwasher once I'm done using them. We work out a cleaning schedule (I hate dusting and they can't stand vacuuming). We're partners, in it together. Us against the world.

The glow fades, slowly, so slowly that we don't even realize it but that's okay too because as we grow we gain a deeper understanding of what love means and we realize there's a difference between falling in love and loving someone and maybe we're not falling anymore but we still love each other. Where before there was the excitement of discovering the other person, now there's the calm and safe security of knowing another person so deeply and fully. We get to watch each other chase our dreams and achieve them, we get to comfort each other when things are difficult. We just get to exist together. Together.

Things rarely work out the way we expect them to though, do they? By supporting each other's dreams we help each other grow up, grow out, expand. We start to realize that our dreams, the paths we've help each other build, are leading away from each other. Our road, the one we built together, forks. They want the security of a home, a family, stability. I want to travel, to explore, to learn new things and meet new people in new places. Kids would get in the way.

We start to argue, not a lot at first, but it builds, the way these things do. The frustration, anger, resentment. We talk less, and the things that used to delight us about each other suddenly we can't stand. But what do we do? We've been together for years, we know each other so well. I've compromised before, maybe I can do it again. It won't be so bad because that's what love is, compromise and giving things up for each other.

So we try, we really do. But by compromising we just pile more fuel onto the ever burning fire of anger and bitterness. They want kids and we're getting older, but I still don't and it's not fair to bring children into this world when one parent doesn't even want them, is it? What about travel. It'll be so much harder to travel with a child, especially at the beginning when they're so young. They tell me it's okay, we can just put travel on hold for a while and then we can once we're settled. Except that settled means a mortgage and more bills, more taxes, more money going to our stability and not to the things I want.

I see it all stretching out in front of me, as I lay awake at night while they sleep peacefully beside me. The resentment swells and for a moment I hate them with every fiber of my being. I hate them so much it makes me cry, because I also love them, or I think I do. I have to love them, because look at the life we've built together, look at all the little bits of us that we've grown into something. I can't just give this up and walk away, it's not fair. It's not fair to them or to me, or to the us that's existed for years. The us that all our friends know, that our families see.

We're supposed to get married, have kids, do the things that couples do. But I don't want it, not with them, maybe not ever. I can't walk away though and so we continue on in this awful limbo, neither of us happy and neither of us willing to do what we both, eventually, realize we need to. How can we when we aren't you and I anymore.

The ending is abrupt, and yet has been looming for months, maybe longer. You say something off-hand about getting married or about someone else getting married, I honestly can't even remember, but that's what does it.

"We should break up."

The words leave my mouth and for a moment I don't even realize I've spoke out loud. That was supposed to be an inside thought, but I mean it, with everything I am. I have never been more sure of anything in my life, what I've just said.

You pause, looking at me in confusion, then disbelief, then anger and hurt. You can't believe I want to break up, you don't think I'm serious. How could I be, when we're planning our future. Sure you haven't proposed and neither have I, but we both know that's where we're headed.

Except we're not, not really. We both know it, but neither of us wanted to say it. Neither of us wanted to be the villain in the relationship. I didn't mean to take that role, it just sort of happened. But once I've said the words I know I can't take them back, I won't. Because I meant them and I'm done. Eight years and I'm done. It's both the hardest and easiest decision I've ever made.

It hurts though, it hurts so much that I think I'm dying, that I can't believe I'm not dead. I second guess myself constantly because, after all, things weren't really that bad. You're not a bad person (I still think you're one of the most amazing people I've ever met) but I can't go back. I can't be with you because you're amazing, but not for me.

I cry. A lot. Alone, in my childhood bedroom after I move back in with my parents. You were as much me as I was and now I'm just me again, without you, and I don't know how to be me, not us. I think about you constantly. I catch myself about to tell you something, send you a funny meme, or a joke, or just tell you I love you. But I can't because you're not there anymore and I think I've made the biggest mistake of my life, something I'll never recover from.

All I can see is that it's an ending. I don't see the beginning, not then, and not for a long time, not until I look back years later. I don't see the beginning as I pick myself up and put myself back together, not as I start looking for a new job, or a new apartment, or a new life. I don't see it when I take my first trip overseas (I always did want to visit Germany in the fall), or my second. But one day I wake up, in a hotel in Turkey and I see the ending for what it was, the beginning of something else. Something different. I still miss you, I miss us, but it's an older wound now and I've discovered something even more important in the time since us ended.

I discovered me and learning to love myself, well, that's been the best love story of them all.