Well, sort of.
Tightrope walking turns out to be best suited for people in tights (and a ten-foot pole – there’s got to be a joke in there somewhere, but I’m not in the mood), and so a few days ago I asked, “so what is our plan?” New Ex immediately started packing boxes and moved out the next day. Oh. Well, it makes sense, and if communication was even remotely something he did we might not be in this situation to begin with. He’s sort of a “don’t show, don’t tell” kind of guy.
Long ago I had a “fiery” alcoholic boyfriend who, a couple of years after our breakup and once he’d been to AA, called me because Step 8 required him to make a list of all those he’d wronged through his alcoholism, and to make amends.
“You know Bill, ” I said, “the end of a relationship is never just one person’s fault. Except in our case. In our case it was all you. You were a total asshole.”
This breakup, however, is more like no one’s fault, and that’s completely weird if you ask me. It’s downright un-American. Without blame, what are we to do with our thoughts?
It’s not that either of us acted seamlessly. I’m not suggesting that. But even on best behavior, with both of us trying at 100%, there was no way for this to work. “Why,” pleaded the would-be sky diver to her spelunker spouse, “won’t you just jump out of a plane with me?” The spelunker spouse, being underground, didn’t answer because he couldn’t possibly hear.
We’re so far remaining friends and I suspect we’ll stay that way, which prolongs some good and some bad. He’s coming most days to walk and say hi to the dogs, and yesterday he helped me move some stuff around as I rearrange to reclaim. It’s easy to miss him when we’re doing things mundane and just being company, easy to miss just the sound of another person in the house, especially in the evenings. These kidless weeks are going to be that much harder now. (If I had a grandfather clock it would be ticking loudly throughout the empty house, and I thought about looking for a Ticking Clock App just for appropriate ambiance, but a friend suggested I was “aiming low” by wallowing in the obvious.)
It’s weird to turn to talk to no one there, really weird to have no schedule but my own (and only every-other week, so there’s no getting used to this for a while). I haven’t yet figured out how to food shop, but I did last night figure out the sleep function on the TV, which is great. Without New Ex, who always turned it off when he came to bed after me, I’ve found myself awakened but too groggy to respond at 3:00 or 4:00 am as the TV screams at me to either lose weight, juice something, invest my money or, in one unfortunate case night before last, better understand Jeffrey Dahmer from the perspective of his (completely fucked up) parents.
In a couple of days the boys will be back, their first time in the house without him here since they were four or five. I told them that he was looking for a place, asked them how they felt about that. Max nodded once and said, “It makes sense, mom.” Jake, turned away, and when I pressed him to tell me how he was feeling blurted out, “but now you’re going to be all alone!”
Damn you, Mini-Me.