It's hardest at night.

One year ago today, we were in New York, celebrating our half-anniversary with cannoli, prosecco, and purple orchids.

Two months ago tomorrow, he broke up with me.

One month ago tomorrow, we had our last face-to-face meeting. That day, I learned that he had been seeing someone new for two weeks. That means he only lasted a week and a half after dumping me before he went to someone else. In his defense, the other guy asked him out, but it was still a very uncomfortable revelation. I almost wish I didn't know who the other guy was, so I wouldn't be tempted to stalk his Facebook page every day. But I do know who the guy is. Never met the guy, but I know his name, where he works, where he's from, what he studied in college, whom we both know... And that he is now dating the man I thought I would someday marry.

Lately, I've been watching a lot of Sex and the City reruns on E! Because of this, I can't help but feel like Carrie, with Lomond as Mr. Big and the new guy as Natasha, the beautiful socialite Big meets and marries so soon after breaking Carrie's heart by giving up on their relationship. So naturally this Natasha-type's existence has been difficult to deal with.

Equally difficult to deal with were that meeting's other revelations. Apparently, Lomond had not been entirely honest with me about his reasoning on the day he broke up with me. The potential long-distance thing wasn't the real reason at all; it was just easier, more convenient. Really, he had been stewing on his issues with me for months without ever saying a word about them to me. I realize that this is how some people function, but it goes completely against everything I ever told him about my mentality. I have social issues. I think I'm mildly autistic. It's something I have worked very hard to overcome by studying social interactions like a subject in school. I have made great progress over the years to the point that most people don't really notice it anymore, but I still cannot always read people's emotions. He and I discussed this on several occasions, and on each occasion I always made sure to let him know that he could and should tell me about anything about me that is bothering him. I can't improve myself if I don't know I'm doing something wrong.

Any time I could tell something was bothering him, I always asked him what was wrong. He usually said it was something with his family or general "looking for my purpose in life" stuff. Not until our meeting last month did I learn that quite often he was actually thinking of things that bothered him about me but which he was too chicken-shit to tell me about: our 6-year age difference, the fact that I don't go to church, my social missteps, my involvement in faire, how confident I am in my sexuality, to name a few. By not bringing up problems until they were bad enough to end the relationship, he gave me a false sense that our relationship had no major problems, so that I was completely blindsided when he ended it. I would call that his biggest offense.

The age difference never seemed like such a big deal to me. I imagine it was probably exaggerated in his mind when I had to move back into my parents' house. I can get that I seemed younger than I am, living with my parents and having neither a job nor a driver's license. What bothers me most about this is that he never gave any indication that this was an issue.

The religion comment I feel was a little out of line. I realize that as a seminary graduate and church organist, religion is important to him. What he failed to recognize was that I went through years of disillusionment, disbelief, and tears, feeling that I could never be accepted into a church (or heaven, for that matter) because of who I was and whom I loved. I experimented with other belief systems, syncretism, and the like but nothing felt quite right. That was before I realize there was such a thing as an "open and affirming" church, at least not ones that maintain the traditions I love so much about church. Although I am eager to visit such churches and potentially find a spiritual home there, not having a means of transportation has limited this pursuit. I can't comfortably go to these churches with my fundamentalist mother. I'll save a more detailed description of my spiritual journey for another post, but it's safe to say that I am getting closer and closer to belief in Christianity all the time, which makes Lomond's religion comment seem a bit like a "How dare you?" moment.

The social missteps I have already addressed, and faire is something that makes me happy. I never tried to force him to like it, and I could tell that he didn't really get it. That didn't bother me. But it did bother him that it makes me unavailable for eight weekends in a row every spring. That's a common issue in relationships where one person does faire and the other doesn't. Not really sure how that could have been dealt with.

As for being secure in my sexuality, I think that was a jealousy issue. I came to terms with being gay when I was 17 and I never looked back, confident in my belief that there was nothing wrong with it. Meanwhile, I think he still has doubts about it as he approaches 29. While I can't fault him for that, as the journey to acceptance is different for everybody, I will not apologize for having reached the destination so much sooner than he. I tried to help him on his way in a non-forceful manner, but I could tell he was never quite comfortable being in public with me in the capacity of boyfriend, even in gay-friendly environments and among complete strangers we will probably never see again.

I was dealing with the break-up much better before that meeting last month. Since then, I have struggled with depression, obsession, insomnia, binge eating, and more recently loss of appetite. Most of the time I am at least comfortably numb, dedicating time and energy to other pursuits - nutritional consciousness (a more accurate term than "dieting"), baking, gardening, knitting, reading a new webcomic, watching movies, and listening to a lot of music, especially Lady Gaga's Born This Way album. As a result, I have lost five pounds in the past month, have a few new favorite movies, and know how to knit socks. I've also enrolled in a teacher certification program, which I should be able to start by the end of next week.

But as the title of this post suggests, nights are difficult. Since I stayed an extra year at the Unnamed Baptist university, most of my best friends moved away a year ago, and now having graduated, they've pretty much all left. That left me with Lomond and his group - small but tightknit and fun to be around. With the breakup, however, he got to keep the friends, since they were his to begin with. That leaves me vary much alone. Lomond was not just my boyfriend, but my best friend as well. His abrupt absence from my life, combined with separation from almost everyone I spend time with aside from my own troubled family, makes it very hard to stay home alone every night. That is when I can't sleep because I am thinking of him with "Natasha", when I feel unwanted and unneeded, when I hope my parents can't hear me sobbing into my pillow because I feel so painfully lonely.

This certainly isn't a daily occurrence, but when it does come to the surface, I just feel like I have no control. Tonight it was triggered by the knowledge that he was out with "Natasha" and our his friends on our sesquianniversary. I'm feeling better now writing this, having analyzed things, put them into perspective, and figured out what is bothering me. I have decided on the advice of one of our friends that on Monday (Lomond's next day off from work) I will have a serious conversation with him about how we're going to make this friendship work, including some of the thoughts I expressed in this post. Here's hoping we can come to some sort of agreement and that our friendship is not a lost cause.

I leave you with my music therapy du jour:



-PW

Hello, all.

WARNING: This post is very long and possibly depressing. It also talks candidly, but not at all explicitly about sex.

My last post was about a generally positive experience. This one not so much.

Just over four weeks ago, May 17 to be exact, Lomond and I broke up. Amicable, but that doesn't make it suck any less. So here's what happened:

Back on May 4 (May the Fourth be with you), I was in study days before final exams and Lomond had the day off, so he picked me up and we went to the old Rock Church in Norse, TX, because it is one of his favorite places and I had never been. We had a nice time looking at the beautiful old church and walking through the churchyard and smiling at all the delightful Norwegian names on the headstones.

On the drive back, however, he started talking about things. About how he feels drawn back to Africa, where he spent a summer interning for a charity a few years ago. About how he needs to be doing something to improve the world. About how his life here seems meaningless. We had been talking like this for about 30 minutes when I realized he was trying to break up with me. By then, we were getting back into town. We were on one of the main drags in town when the tears started building up in my eyes, but I don't know that he noticed yet, since my glasses have wide side pieces. We barely got inside his house before I fell apart. This then set him off the same way. He said he couldn't stand to see me cry.

I don't really remember how the ensuing conversation went, but it ended with weepy kissing and the discovery that he was out of condoms. So no break-up sex; just break-up fooling around. Afterward, I think we watched the previous night's Glee on Hulu before he took me home.

I held it together well enough that night, listened to some sad music. Then as I was about to go to bed, he called me having a very hard time with it, saying he didn't know whether he had done the right thing. I told him to go to bed and see how he felt in the morning.

The next afternoon, he says he needs to see me, so he comes to pick me up and we go to his house. Basically, he couldn't stop thinking that he had made a mistake. He had been talking to a few friends about it, and one of them pointed out that the conversation had been very one-sided, that he had not given me an opportunity to give my input on the matter. This friend also asked him, "This feeling that you made a mistake, is it in your head or in your gut?" Lomond said that it was in his gut. He also told me that he had realized how silly it was to end something good just because of the idea of going back to Africa when he had no idea when that might actually happen. So we agreed we had both made a silly mistake - him for suggesting it and me for going along with it - and we got back together. We made a run to the drugstore and had amazing make-up sex.

That weekend at faire, I confided in my friend Colour about what had happened, but didn't feel the need to tell anyone, since it was just a silly little hiccup. The next Tuesday, Lomond and I had our usual date night/Glee viewing followed by what may have been the best sex I've ever had. Just saying. That Saturday, he took a few hours from work to see me graduate from the Unnamed Baptist University, but had to go back to work before lunch.

But the next Tuesday (the aforementioned May 17), when we picked me up for our usual date night, I could tell something was bothering him. We were back at his house before we got to the heart of matter. He was having the same feelings as two weeks previous. I made it fairly clear that I may have just sat there and listened the first time, but I was going to stand my ground this time. When he kept bringing up all the same things he had before, I kept saying variations of "I'm not giving up on this." He asked what I thought we would do if he did go to Africa for 6 months, a year, or longer. I said we could deal with that when it was actually happening, but that I was willing to do long distance. I kept citing CSI Friend, whose husband is in Iraq for a year, as an example that it's hard, but doable. He kept saying that he didn't think he could do it. I realize that it was happening again and I went into defense mode. I said we would never know unless we tried, that we shouldn't give up on what we had just because it might be hard, that I wasn't going anywhere.

Then the song "And I Am Telling You" from Dreamgirls started playing in my head. For those not familiar, this song is sung by a woman who refuses to admit that her diva antics have ruined her career and pushed away the man she loved. She is fighting tooth and nail for something that is already gone. That is when I fell apart, buried my face in the bed and when Lomond questioned, I said, "I'm pathetic. I'm like Effie White, fighting to save something that's already gone."

By the time that conversation was done, it was almost time for Glee, so he ordered a pizza. In my mind, I thought, "You just broke up with me for the second time in two weeks. You can certainly buy me dinner." The Glee funeral episode, pizza, beer, and then several episodes of The United States of Tara. And that's how that night ended. The only people I told about it that weekend were Colour and Gelfling, but word spread around a bit. That's okay.

On his suggestion, we still got together the next Tuesday for the season finale of Glee. We picked up Panda Express and a bottle of wine on the way. I paid for the wine before he could even get to the counter. Glee was good, as were the wine and the Chinese food. We watched even more United States of Tara, and I got hooked. The evening seemed only minimally awkward, and I thought it was a good step toward staying friends, which he first suggested and which we both agreed we wanted to do.

We let the next week go by, which is probably a good thing, since my birthday was in that week, and it probably would have been awkward, especially considering how sweet he was on my last birthday. But then last Monday, I asked how he was doing and whether he wanted to hang out some time soon, since I had the once-lost English version of The Blue Angel on Netflix, and he said sure, since he loves foreign films, so we made plans for the next day. That day, however, while I was out on my first jog of my most recent health kick, he sent me a text saying that it seemed too soon. I responded that I was just making an effort to stay friends, but that I understood if he was feeling uncomfortable. Not that I wanted to be so understanding. I wanted to scream.

Now I feel like a selfish bitch, because he was supposed to put The United States of Tara on my new external drive. I mean, I want to see him too, I want to stay friends with him, but I still have my selfish motivations for wanting to see him. I'm thinking about texting him tomorrow to see if he wants to hang out. I have Heißer Sommer on Netflix. Maybe he won't be able to turn down a campy East German musical from the 60s.

I'll let you know how things go.

-PW