for nearly five years, i was in a relationship with a wonderful person who had been a longtime friend-turned-lover. late last year, we ended things and, as some relationships often flux, got back together several months later. earlier this year, in march, we were in an “off” period but still remained intimate. breakups. in the early spring one day, we met up for drinks. we had a lot of fun. when we first broke up, i was rather indifferent about the whole affair. we both had been pretty unhappy and exhausted toward what would be the first of many ends. but this day, as messy as we ended up getting, had me feeling like we had made a mistake. this was it; this was the person i was to be with. getting him to sleep with me that night took zero effort. the proposal left my lips and within seconds, we were right back to where was most comfortable: in the bed we shared for all these years. it was emotional. i cried (a good cry) the entire time and all we could both say was how much we loved each other, over and over again. as complicated as everything had become, it did somewhat feel like we were on the same page, if only for a moment. the next day, i learned that this person was seeing someone else. he assured me it was casual, but that he definitely didn’t think he and i should try and make things work. i was a mess, admittedly. i felt alone in the overwhelming everything of it all. confusion, hurt, anger, jealousy. but through all this, i did (perhaps it was delusional) think we could eventually make a friendship work. this person was so important to me and i was willing to make any type of connection work if he was. it was hard, and he was distant, but we tried it. sometime in mid-april, i found out i was pregnant. it was a force of emotions culminating in feeling aloft of reality. everything was scary, everything was confusing, nothing was right timing-wise. nothing was right at all. this is not anything close to a situation i wanted anything to do with. we sat and talked for three hours, utterly petrified. i didn’t know what i was going to do but i had to tell him; i couldn’t tell another soul. i had had abortions before and i was, quite frankly, ashamed at my situation. once i told him, everything became as messy as seemed possible. it was not until i revealed this information that this person in turn revealed to me that they were in a full-blown relationship with the person they assured me was just a “casual” dating situation. i should have known better; he has never been single for more than a few months since he was 14 years old. (side note: this always concerned me) somehow, in a matter of weeks, he had met a person and was already planning for them to move in with him. all while still talking to me, having me over for dinner, going to the movies. this of course displaced my headspace even deeper out of any semblance of sense. i felt played and by the one person i never thought was capable of playing me. i gave myself a week to figure out what i wanted to do. after much agony and little sleep, i decided going through with this pregnancy was the final decision. it was terrifying, i was in no way ready, i never wanted to have a child with someone who wasn’t deeply in love with me... but i knew i didn’t want (another) abortion. i had had one for this person before and i regret it to this day. i wasn’t going to do that to myself again. i couldnt. this was an inconvenient choice but i figured: “i have nothing but the greatest support system on this planet. it will be hard, but i’ve done hard; i can do this.” i also knew, somewhere in the turbulent haze, that the other party involved - this person i know better than anyone on this planet - would, in spite of everything, show up to be an incredible, present parent. it was not ideal, but it was settled. maybe “settled” is the wrong word choice. i made the decision quietly, alone, in my home one tuesday evening. i did not know where my skin ended and the air began. the days that followed are absent from memory to this day and i will (perhaps thankfully) likely never get the memory of those days back. the only constant was pain - physical and emotional - and so many tears. someone i was very much still in love with was officially no longer my partner - and here i was, having his child. when i finally told my ex of my decision, it did not go over the best; we were, after all, not together and he had, for all intents and purposes, cheated on someone with me. no part of this situation was anything either of us ever dreamed we’d find ourselves in. i was still in college at this point and had just been fired from a lucrative job. the future, as it was, looked bleak. the residual heartbreak of our uncoiling would be the hurdle before the next: “how the fuck am i going to do this?” it was a wednesday. i told him i was going to go through with the pregnancy as we sat on the couch we bought together - our first big purchase as a couple. i think he thought i would change my mind, or was just saying i would keep it to see how he would react. what he thought would be a five-minute moratorium on our connection turned into twenty and he left in a flurry of tense limbs and stern words. “if you keep it, we are NOT getting back together.” or my personal favorite, “go ahead and trap me and ruin my one chance at being on my own” - confusing, as i thought he was in a relationship and near cohabitation? after that, i couldn’t hear a word he said. i blinked slowly, sitting straight taking all my strength, alien in my own form. my chest deep underwater yet my head high up into space, where the air is so thin. i sat in my apartment staring at the wall, silent. less than an hour later, he called me. manic. “you really want to do this?” “of course not! but the alternative is unbearable! you know that! i won’t do it, stephen!” “okay, then.” what followed was a 13-minute rambling of how we needed to get back together and make things work - “for real this time” - and move back in together to start saving money and planning for this new future of ours. although i had long thought this was what i wanted, it absolutely felt a reckless decision. this was not the circumstance under which i wanted this person back in my life. i was, however, tired of fighting, of trying. tired of being faced with difficult decisions. i did almost none of the talking. he hung up and i let the phone slip into my lap. On his lunch break, we met up halfway between my house and his place of work so that I could give him a set of keys. When we met on the sidewalk, he grabbed my face and kiss me deeply. It felt cinematic, in a beautiful way. I was speechless. He had lots to say. Mostly how he missed me and just wanted to ravage me right then and there, on his break. i knew this was a terrible idea, as much as i also wanted it. besides: he would move back in that very night. i went to work that evening, going through the motions, barely able to speak to anybody, much less behave like a human being. what was happening couldn’t possibly be happening to me - this was cinematic, and not in a beautiful way. i watched the day unfurl for myself feeling powerless and exhausted. i returned home and he was there. in our house. one of three we shared together. it felt equal parts right and wrong. “i talked to that girl,” he said. “how did that go,” i asked. i didn’t care, but i asked. “she seemed very indifferent. detached. i told her i cheated and that this was the decision and she told me ‘good luck’ and hung up.” “sounds weird,” i replied. “yeah, well, whatever.” that was that on that. he had put in his 30 day notice on his apartment. he moved his cat in. he ended a relationship. he told his parents and friends everything. all within a matter of six hours. i had told no one. he made me dinner. i couldn’t taste anything. we made love and fell asleep holding each other so close, more tears, two scared children with nothing else to grasp hold of but the thing that made the most sense to us. because it was familiar.
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