Well well well in Das Book

I broke up with Alex.

It’s a little embarrassing to read my most recent entry now that it’s the future and things have become so very clear.

Denial! Experienced so much denial in the past four years. I remember when Alex and I first started dating. On our first out-of-town weekend trip together, I told him we weren’t compatible. Because he was always bitching and he didn’t want to walk so far and then when we arrived at our friend’s house he stayed up with them all night playing video games, and then when he came to bed he took up all of the space and stole all of my blankets.

Not compatible.

And then we went to Thailand together and he freaked out about the bugs, and the food, and the general grunginess, and on not being able to understand Thai, and the heat, and the hiking, and, and, and.

And we’ve had this “not compatible” discussion so many times and have talked about breaking up but in the end we’ve always decided to keep working on it.

And we worked on it and we actually shined our relationship up in a pretty profound way, despite all of our incompatibilities. We rocked at communication. I knew that he needed me to flatter him on a regular basis. He knew that I wasn’t going to tolerate overt whining. Etc, etc.

I talked to my therapist a few days after I wrote the last entry. She encouraged me to take the love I have for Cody and reflect it toward myself, something that was easy to do because Cody and I are so similar. I was sitting with that. Practicing for a few days. And I was actually really reveling in the self love. And then I realized that the things I was reveling in loving about myself are things that I have to keep hidden from Alex because they offend his sensibilities.

I love to sing in the morning. But for Alex it’s too loud and obnoxious.

I love to go fast! On bike, on hike, on snow, out the door, in car, on longboard, fast! But for Alex it’s too hard/stimulating/unnecessary.

I really, really love to have pink hair. But for Alex it’s too… juvenile? Unconventional? I am not even sure where his disgust lies with this, but it manifests through many rolling of eyes and lamenting that I’ve chosen to burden him once again with this “phase”.

Why the fuck do I want to be in a relationship for the rest of my life with someone whom I have to hide my true self from?

So I broke up with him.

I’m emerging brightly.

My hair is pink.

Cody and I keep going on “walks” that turn into several-mile runs.

I’m in love with Cody in a profound way. He sees all of me. I see all of him. We exist together as two wholes in a duo rather than as two halves making one. It feels so good to be whole. To emerge and be celebrated instead of to always be shrinking.

I haven’t ever felt like this before, and I think I am sort of a connoisseur of falling in love. In this instance, I don’t feel like I’m overlooking anything. I just feel like… click. This is it. Here he is. The one you’ve been looking for. The one you can relax into.

I’ve experienced a ton of shame and fear around this situation. I broke up with Alex as soon as I understood. And then had to go about telling people and I was so worried that no one else would understand. Some people have, some people haven’t. He is a magnificent human being, Alex. So why wouldn’t I want to marry him? Well, you know.

And I’ve jumped head first into Cody. I had planned to take space. Move slowly. Spend the summer away from him in Alaska. But none of that feels right, actually. It feels a lot more right to come home and eat dinner and share my day with Cody. And to not begin our relationship in a long-distance situation, but to keep him near me, doing beautiful work together with families on Prince of Wales. And I wasn’t even wanting to bring him home yet, because I don’t know if my family is ready to meet him, but I’m ready, because I know that it’s different this time.

I could spend sixty years with this one, easy, sure, yep.

<3

Last updated April 23, 2015