Day 41

What could've been...

It is our last night living together, and she's moving out tomorrow. She spent last night sleeping in my arms, and will spend tonight sleeping in his. We're not saying goodbye, and we know this isn't forever... we hope with all our hearts that within a few short months, we can start "dating," whatever that looks like with your ex-live-in-girlfriend you share with your husband. The hope is that somewhere down the road, maybe in 18 months, maybe sooner, we can all live together again. When that happens, if that happens (and oh, how we hold tightly to the "when" and try desperately to ignore the "if"), we'll know it's forever. We'll know we've worked out what needed to be worked out. We'll know it's right for her, and she'll know we're who she needs and wants to be with for the rest of her life.

We play a game, watch a movie... we spend every minute of this last day together. We are sad, but we go to bed with hopeful hearts... we kiss, we cuddle. We love. We share our tears and sorrow, but believe it's only transient... it's just a part of our journey together, and the time apart is necessary to get to the "rest of our lives."

We close our eyes, as she and I hold hands and envelop him in a hug. We fall asleep with heavy hearts, but like Pandora's box, there is hope mixed in with our sorrows and saddness.

What is...

He and I slept together last night, as she slept alone in the room below ours. We go shopping together, leaving her home - for the final time ever - to pack alone. At the stores, everything is a heartbreak. I see a gingerbreak house at Costco... and I almost burst into tears. She doesn't even know I'd planned to buy that kit to make with her before Christmas. It was something I'd been planning to surprise her with, but that chance slipped away. Even after the (temporary, or so we hoped) breakup, I was going to surprise her with one on Christmas Day. I wanted to make that and watch Elf, which she has never seen, and even he loves. I wanted to share a tradition and start one with her, because even after November 25th, I believed we'd have Christmases together, as Us.

At PetSmart, I saw stuffed Christmas giraffes. At Costco, I saw a toy safari with a giraffe. I remember feeding them with her, not so terribly long ago, and I wanted to cry.

In the car, songs that made us think of her - or songs that were ours - taunted us. We'd turn the radio on, desperate for a distraction, only to turn it off again when James Otto's voice reminded us that "after all the love we've made, it sure would be a shame if we let this moment end so soon." Ironic that it was one of her songs to us, and now it's ending and we aren't the ones who let it end.

We struggle not to cry, and sometimes lose the battle. She is everywhere, it seems, even as she sits packing her stuff to leave our home, the one we've shared with her for over six months.

We alternate between intense saddness, not just for ourselves, but for her... and extreme frustration and anger. Why? What did we do wrong? We remind each other we didn't do anything wrong... we gave her every chance possible. We broke up with the door wide open, and she turned around and slammed it shut while our fingers were still in the doorway. With how awful it hurts, it doesn't seem possible that we did nothing wrong. There must be something we're missing, something we failed to give her that she needed... except we gave her all of ourselves. As much as we give each other... we were honest and loyal and devoted and we loved her in the same way we love each other. We didn't have the history with her, but the kind of love we felt (and feel still, unfortunately) for her is the same kind of love we've felt for one another for nearly eleven years.

I ask myself why... it's so incredibly stupid, and what slammed that door shut was something that wouldn't have been a blip on the radar. We'd have been just fine with the true story. She just didn't give it to us. Does she feel unworthy? Was it an escape hatch? Maybe she didn't want the hope we were offering, and she was letting us go in the only way she knew how. Perhaps she realized she didn't actually love us, and was trying to spare us that reality in the only way she thought possible. Of course, if that was the case, it didn't spare us anything... because once again, for us the truth is always easiest to handle.

So, here we are... her last day with us. She will go to sleep alone, one final time, downstairs. We will hold tightly to each other up here. We know it's the last night.

I can barely handle being in the same room as her right now. It hurts too much. I see her and realize she's going away tomorrow... and that's it. It's over. Even if we manage to maintain a friendship, what we've had for nine months is gone. All tossed aside over some stupid white lies... just one too many. Trust is fragile when not nourished, and when abused it will shatter like crystal. It can not be repaired once that happens. The pieces left behind are too broken to ever be pieced together again.

And so this is the last night... the last night of something we wanted, dreamed and hoped would be forever, just as what we've shared is forever. It's a detour on our path together, and not a destination.

I question the veracity of all of it, and yet if it was all a lie, it started as such a beautiful one... and so I cling to that, to the beauty amidst the questions, amidst the doubts. I remember that first night in Phoenix, when I slept in the middle... only I couldn't believe how amazing I felt, and I barely slept because I didn't want to give a moment of the happiness up to sleep. I barely slept for fear I'd wake up to find it all a dream...

And oh, what a dream it was...

So, he will take her to her new home tomorrow. He will help her move her stuff inside. He will get into the car and come home to me... and he and I will get back to the route we were on last February 27th. We will never be the same. We love each other more... we appreciate the magic of what we share more. I see what his love looks like from outside the circle of it. I know exactly what she threw away, and I just can't fathom how she could let him go...

I love her still, despite the anger and saddness. I worry about her ability to take care of herself... and then I remember that it's not my right to take care of her now. I don't get to ask where she is or what she's doing. She took all my rights away last Saturday night.

"But there's a danger in loving somebody too much,
and it's sad when you know it's your heart you can't trust.
There's a reason why people don't stay where they are.
Baby, sometimes, love just aint enough."
~Patti Smyth

"And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance"
~Garth Brooks