Consciously Uncoupling

Last night I slept exactly, mathematically, measuredly, in the center of my bed. 

Well, since we’re being technical, his bed. At any moment he will appear at my door, U-haul double parked, blocking in the neighbors, with one or two of his most devoted friends, to take the bed (and the rest of his belongings) away. 

Which is partly one of the reasons for the past eight months I’ve restricted myself to sleeping on “my side.” I live in a constant limbo of the past and the future, having made no peace yet with either.

There is a strange thing that occurs when you become a couple. A merging of lives. The pronouns his/hers, quickly get replaced by we/ours. Our friends, our apartment, our life. You build a foundation upon these pronouns. You add in people. You add in experiences. You add in furniture. You add in all of these things, without the pessimistic (or some would call it) realistic expectation that this will not last. You go all in to prove you are 100% down with the new pronoun. Splitting bills, going half on a couch, throwing out your bed because his is superior. 

And then that day comes, when everything is erased and the only pronoun left is “you.” And you have to sort out what, if anything, from that union was yours and yours alone. 

The hardest part of this “uncoupling” is in the beginning, the metaphorical part. You have to take stock of who you are. What you really brought in. What ideas were yours. What parts of yourself did you compromise on? Before he came, what was there? 

That took a long while. Actually, strike that. That’s taking a long while. Longer than I thought. Eight months later and I’m finally almost back to being “myself” if there ever was such a self to be. 

Now comes the less cerebral, but arguably more annoying task of physically dividing up a life. 

He left and I stayed. That’s the basic gist of the matter. Ideally, the U-Haul would have showed up a few weeks after he left and these feelings would have been resolved whether I liked it or not. But reality is much messier than Judd Apatow would like you to believe.

In the past eight months, he has found a new girlfriend. Although he doesn’t call her his girlfriend. Nevertheless, he lives with her. “Our” furniture is not needed or wanted in that space. So I keep the literal baggage here with me. I, apparently, am good at ignoring unwanted baggage. 

I’m now faced with a choice. To set firm deadlines to collecting this shit, or else selling it. 

Everyone thinks I should do just that. Come by xy date or else I will sell this shit online. 

But it’s not really that simple. 

With each physical piece of furniture, there is attached an emotional memory. It’s like, our love is interwoven in this elaborately designed Minimalist Boho scheme we chose. When the furniture goes, we go with it. 

I am not holding on to him. I am more so holding on to the promise that he brought. The promise of a shared life with some other human on this planet. The promise that I won’t ever have to face difficult times alone anymore. The promise that I have someone who understands me and I can stop with the charades. 

The promise was broken but the hope still remains. 

So, he told me by the end of March he’d come for his things. Being in the middle of March, I still don’t see that happening. 

I’ve not yet had sex on “our” bed, but I have slept on his side. 

Small steps.

 Until it’s finally collected and I replace it with something ridiculously feminine and soft, that nobody would ever mistake as being “his.”