I need a break. I’m…kind of a mess right now. And. I wasn’t even going to tell you. But. That’s what I do. Tell you. Everything. And I just…need a break. I can only hope, you won’t disappear. That you’ll understand. And. Still love me. And still be here.
Yeah well… it happens eh? There’s not a hell of a lot I can do. I’m not angry, disappointed, entirely surprised or dismayed. This is what happens in relationships, the good, the bad and the ugly. And gods know I’ve been through all three.
So where am I now? Here. Home. I’m still me, she’s still her, just she’s decided to hit the pause button for a while. I know why, and here isnt the place to discuss it, believe me. Even an anonymous WordPress blog isn’t the place to explain some things.
The last time I heard those four words, ‘I need a break…’ they were out of my own mouth. At the time I’d been with a girl for four years, we’d just been through a pregnancy scare (well, I was scared), and I was struggling with new-found ideas of liberty, and living. Really living. I’d recently gotten my bike license, I’d discarded years of anxieties and finally learnt to stand on my own two feet. I was also becoming more involved with TGAW; too involved. And I couldnt do the whole bit-on-the-side thing, so I asked for a time out to get my head, and indeed my heart, straight.
My ex-gf used the time to get closer to a work colleague, complete with late night rides on the back of his sportsbike. She showed zero interest in my bike I might add. Not sure if you’ve ever seen a pillion on a sportsbike, but let’s say things are quite snug. For three months she fended me off with lies, until I finally got her around one night, and she told me the truth. Thing was… I’d discovered I’d wanted to be with her, and that things were going in the right direction. Until I heard what she had to say, which brought back dark, bitter memories of another ex-girlfriend who basically started shagging her other boyfriend the minute she moved out. I didnt know about him until six months later, oddly enough.
Where is all this going? Oh yeah. ‘I need a break’. Well… that’s fine. But I’m not going to put a pause on my life, lock myself in my room and disembowel myself waiting for months before hearing it’s over. I’ll take each day as it comes. I’ll continue to live. And no matter how things turn out, for better or worse, I’ll still be me.
And that’s more than I’ve walked away from relationships with in the past.
If this was me five years ago, I’d be half-drunk already and lamenting like an Irishman.
If this was me ten years ago, I’d have lost the plot and be climbing the walls or begging for Vicodin or something.
But it’s me, now. Stronger, fitter, smarter and less raw.
Edit: Something I’ve been forgetting to mention. FML reminds me, sometimes, that my life really isn’t that bad.
Tonight’s musical theme: Foo Fighters – Monkey Wrench
Ah shit.
There is not much I can say which you have not already thought. Most of my ‘advice’ is a regurgitation of things you have already told me in the past.
You know more than most that keeping your head faced forward is the most important thing here.
You can’t look back and base decisions on the past events since those were made by a different version of yourself as a culmination of tiny events which were specific to those moments. And you can’t look too far ahead and tell yourself ‘this is what is going to happen’ since, you know, Life will always throw in something to knock you on your arse. Something you could never have possibly have factored into the equation.
Now is all anyone truly has.
I hope it all works out. She was giving you a direction when you were stuck in a circuit. But I know that you are mentally preparing yourself for every eventuality you can think of.
Maybe even the time off is a travelling period, the end of which is at your front door carrying nothing more than a few changes of clothes. Likely? Well I can’t say. Possible? Anything is.
And remember the advice passed on through the generations, given to every Aussie man who is suffering great loss, stress or grief:
“She’ll be right!”
The fact I laughed on reading the last two sentences probably says a lot about my mental state. And you’re right – I’d mentally prepared for this a long time ago. The same way I mentally prepare for as many different outcomes to everything all the time. Maybe it’s something that develops from writing – imagining as many different threads as possible.
Years ago this would’ve wrecked me.
Now it’s just another page in a story that’s not going to stop.
I’d raise a toast to the future, but it’s 10:30 a.m, and I leave for work in about three hours. Dammit!
It was intended to make you smirk. I wouldn’t have put it up if I thought it would have the opposite effect.
“Years ago this would’ve wrecked me.” And that’s my point. I’ll sound a little hypocritical in this but it’s absolutely no use looking to the past. There’s the saying that you never cross the same river twice.
Never cross the same river twice…
Just the same boat. And the same clown at the oars. Actually, it reminded me of Turisas’ The Varangian Way…
May beer flow as long as we can stand on two
All the pretty girls, come, keep us warm!
Tonight we drink, no room for depressing thoughts
Fill your horns!
Wait. Maybe The Court of Jarisleif wasn’t what I was getting at. Ah well. Skol!