BREAK UP

This is a very sad post I've been putting off writing for weeks now. The Poet and I broke up at the end of February, six weeks ago. It was my decision.

There are a thousand things to write about the break up, but I don't know what is the right one. The Poet is a wonderful, brilliant, funny, caring person. I miss him terribly. I miss the many bright and tender moments we had. I do not miss the strife and anxiety, which had come to outweigh all the good things. This past year was especially difficult between us. I had my relapse last March, I got back on antibiotics and Lyme treatment once again ruled my days and nights. Meanwhile, the Poet was facing down his own demons, of which he was the first to admit he had plenty.

He said he wanted to support me through the difficulties of my illness, but his unadmittable, understandable, forgivable truth was he couldn't. He was burned out and his impatience came through, day after day.

This past year, I was drained from what I was going through physically, whatever I had left I gave to the relationship, but it wasn't enough. I had to take medicine around the clock, packing up pills and drops and juices and powders each time I left the house for even a couple hours. From morning to night, I was trapped in a series of cumbersome tasks. Weekend trips, or anything that felt adventuresome, relaxed, or free was pretty much impossible for me.

In a sad twist, I have now stopped taking 95% of these things in the seven weeks since our break up.

When The Poet met me, eight years ago, I was much, much sicker than I am now. He supported me with humor and love through many difficult times, and I am grateful for that. But living with him was rough. I won't go into details, but I knew I was putting up with things that were not OK, that I wouldn't have had I not been sick. I simply depended on him too much and didn't have the strength to move out, live on my own, or get through the greater pain of a break up, although I was in the verge of it many times. There were many beautiful aspects to our connection, times when his love for me shone through, and those times kept me going.

That and the hope that we would work things out. Looking back, there were times when it seemed we'd turned the corner with our conflicts. We had six-month and year-long stretches that were solid, wonderful. Then things would get awful again.

I have been missing him very much in the past few days. And more than a few times I have asked the sky and the air-- would we have made it if I hadn't been sick for so long? Would I have had enough patience and wit to sooth his angst and anger? Would we have created more happy moments, and would that have lofted him away from the darkness and anxiety he carried inside him?

Possibly. Possibly not. It's a futile question. All I know is since the break up, I am at peace in a way I haven't been for years. My life also feels empty of something beautiful and terrible, of strands of sweetness I could never sift out of all that resentment and rage, for all the years I spent trying.