echos in empty rooms

i am mean.  well, i mean to say that i can be mean.  i can be hard.  it would surprise you how cold i can be.  how quickly i can close down and shut people out.

i have been mean to sergio.  i have been hateful and cold and i have done it because i am a coward.  i am a coward because he loves me, and i know he loves me, and i have not told him the truth.

the truth is i am not in love with him any more.  i haven't been for quite some time. 

we never should have moved in together.  i realize now that i was giving him hope.  and really, maybe i was giving myself some hope as well.

we have been together in some form or another for almost 9 years.  that is longer than his longest marriage.

and right now this feels like a divorce.  i am sad, and tired, and tired of crying.  i can tell you that i never ever thought that sergio and i would end up like this.  but my heart has moved on and it is about time my body does too.

i will be out of my apartment on or before 04/01/2011.  yeah, it seems like an april fool's joke but no one is laughing and saying "just kidding".  the words finally came spilling out of him last friday.  it was the icy rain i had tried so hard to avoid.  i was now drenched in this down pour and shivering.  my soul ached for warmth and found nothing but cold air as the clouds continued to roll in.  i heard him, i heard the words and he wouldn't stop, he couldn't stop.  everything that i had slowly let seep out and pool around his feet over the course of a year was coming at me, in uncontrolable waves trying to knock me down.  i shouted and yelled...it was an out of body experience. 

i disconnected to protect myself and i could see what was left of me reacting to what was happening.  those words were not my words, that voice was not my voice.  and he endured it, endured my reaction with his head in his hands and tears spilling from his eyes.  he did not want to be doing this to me or us.  he had no choice.  and so i stopped.  i cut myself off and i just stopped.  he didn't deserve this.  i was not about to make this worse.  it was hurting him too much.  and hurting him was just going to hurt me even more.

something has died.  it is like our relationship was on life support and he was finally courageous enough to pull the plug.  and now it's like we are planning a funeral.  instead of a grave there are boxes and cartons.  instead of flowers there are apologies.  even as i write this i am tearing up because i don't think i ever grieved.  i lived it, and i pushed through it, but i never mourned it. 

packing up my things, and leaving his there...i wonder if this is how they cut out the cancerous cells leaving behind the viable tissue.  all i know is that even though the cells are cancer, deadly as they are, they are still a part of you.  and i am leaving his things there and there is still a part of me in all of it. 

i had that moment of panic.  that entire did-i-do-the-right-thing-perhaps-we should-give-this-one-more-try thing, it ran through my head like a warning, but i know it was fear, and sadness.  it only lasted for a few moments, but he stayed strong.  and because he stayed strong, i am proud of him. 

i am not bitter, bitter came and went a long time ago.  i am just filled with a very deep longing for something that was and never will be again.  i can't even explain the depths of it but to say i find myself choking back a hard lump when i think of the packing and the boxes and the apologies.

we can't sit here and analyze what went wrong....9 years is a lot to look back on.  we were stubborn, un-yeilding.  we needed to be heard, and never thought the other was listening.  and still with each beat of my heart, every thud of my pulse,  a voice echos in my ears "you love him, but you are not in love with him."

how do you let go of what you love?  i can't make sense of it.  how i want to and i just can't.  i can tell you that love isn't enough to hold things together, love isn't enough to balance it all out.  love isn't glue. 

i have held our relationship in my small hands, like sand. it spilled over, falling back into the depths in which it came from.  the wind took some away on its swirling and twirling breathes and breezes.  my hands ached and when i tried to shift ever so lightly even more fell from my grasp.  at times he was there supporting my hands in his, and at times he was the wind and the weight behind the ache.  but now, now what remains of the sand is slipping through my fingers.  i can not stop it and i will not try.

i look at his face now and i see a different man.  perhaps i see a part of myself,  something lies in the depths of his brown eyes, something different, something broken.  it echos the pain that i find in my own heart.  and unlike any time before, i do not ask my Lord to take this pain from me, or from sergio.  we need it.  we need to push it around and feel the weight of it.  we need to push through it, together and separately.  with out this pain we will continue, as we are, together never parting.

i know that we will be ok.  perhaps even be friends.  not now.  no, not right now.  right now we are the wounded.  broken and bleeding out.  we can only save ourselves, we can't save each other.  my heart aches for him and because of him and there is such a thin line between the two.

so many spectators want to say "you are better off with out him".  they don't remember the times that i was better because of him.  he was my champion, my hero.  he protected me from my worst enemy, myself, more times than i can count.  i took him into my arms and made a place for him.  quiet, tidy, secure.  he did the same. 

and now we are slowly disassembling this shelter, not knowing what to do with all of it's parts.  not sure what to say to the other person, and so the apologies continue.  and they will probably continue until the end, until we leave our keys on the bar and lock that door for the final time.  my heart falters now thinking about that day, know it will be here sooner than i want it to be.