The middle of the end?

Ben and I are breaking up.

(All of you out there who have been quietly biting your tongues for the past couple years can clap and cheer now. You haven't been nearly as subtle as you'd like to think, but bless you for not rubbing my nose in my bad [or even somewhat dubious] choices.)

Wow, that seems much more dramatic (and possibly traumatic) written out like that, and I don't think that even begins to sum it up. Somewhat more accurate to say that I've decided to leave him, and the choice seems so natural and obvious that neither of us can find any reason to fight it. This affair (and in retrospect, isn't that a good word for it?) has been over and done with for months now. It's only survived this long because we're both so terribly codependent and unwilling to take big risks.

Truth be told, I'm really very relieved about this. It's scary, sure, and this means very soon I'll be living by myself for the first time ever, but I think it's about damn time. The goal is to be in a new place be February, though that's not going as smoothly as I had hoped. Yes, this means that I'm moving again, for the ninth time in less than six years if anyone is keeping count. I dread the mechanics of it, packing and unpacking boxes, arranging furniture, begging help out of overly generous friends who really would rather be doing just about anything else, but I’m really looking forward to having my own place. Game nights and dinner parties without any advance warning, no one’s dirty dishes in the sink but my own, thermostat set to whatever suits me (and my budget), a welcoming, inviting place to invite friends or even *gasp* a romantic interest. (Not that I have any such thing specifically planned, but the idea is nice in the abstract.) It will be rather barren at first, but I look forward to creating my own space, without having to accommodate or justify or beg.

The emotional ramifications? I’m scared half to death. Relieved that there haven’t been terribly many fights or ugly confrontations between Ben and myself. Incredibly proud of myself that I actually had the nerve to do this. Worried that I’m being unfair to Ben, that I’ll miss him and that as flawed as what we had together was, it really was the best I’ll ever get. (And isn’t that just the gooey candy center of this all? That I’m still afraid I don’t deserve any better.)

More to come, and hopefully with less than 3 months in the interim. I was so afraid to write as I panned all of this, as if putting it on paper would steal my nerve, or commit me to something before I had time to make up my mind. No matter; who’s reading this thing anyway? The anonymous expanses of the ‘net are sure to forgive.