Endings

It is Sunday, and I have lost count of what day this consitutes in our silent war.

Early this morning as I was going to bed, after reading The Prophet, I had this incredible urge to go up to you and kiss you as you lay sleeping on the couch, and invite you to our bed. But then I realised that you may groggily comply and I will have to put up with your sleeping presence next to me, while my inner turmoil rages next to you, keeping me awake.

So instead, I let it go and went to sleep.

This afternoon when I woke, I snuck a look at the text messages on your phone. You are smarter now since I caught you the last time - you actually erase some of your messages. But I do know you've been talking to the ex, like you typically do every time we fight.

What is it with you and your blindness? You think you can run away and seek solace in her presence, when it was her presence you ran away from in the first place? You told J that the ex probably hates you, yet you keep going back to her, saying hello, reaching out.

I don't know any more how to sort things out in my own head, let alone yours.

There is a part of me that wonders whether it is me, me wanting you to achieve more, reach higher, dream bigger. I also realise at times, that it's not right for me to do this. That you are your own person. But at the same time, you resent me for it.

Maybe I should just be with someone else. Someone whose dreams and efforts are as big as mine. And as simple. Or at least someone who actually does something to reach for their dreams.

It's not like I want you to be a billionaire. But I do want you to worry about what will happen in the future, and how we will take care of ourselves. You live paycheck to paycheck. It's not like your family or mine is rich enough to support either of us if something happens. What sort of safety net do we have?

I don't know. Maybe I am just slowly going into a depression because of where my own life is.

Am I depressed?

I do sometimes feel like this world has gone to pot. Like there's little I can do to change it. And I want to change it.

But often, I think there is still a lot of beauty and grace in this world that makes it worth while living. I love living, I love life. I can't bear the thought of dying. I think it is such a horrible, frightening notion.

Yet, there is at times like this, a hole. A hole that is so black I don't know what's at the bottom of it. If you know the bottom, at least you'll have an idea how best to fill it.

Am I happy in this relationship of ours? Of late, I have to say no. No because things don't seem to be changing for the better. You seem to, in my eyes, be getting worse. This is my year of figuring out what to do with the rest of my life, at least in the medium-term, and having you regress is not something I can cope with.

I need you with me and in the moment, or perhaps not at all.

I don't need you to tiptoe around when I need to be my raw, unedited self, thinking aloud, coping with the every day in order to get to the next station.

I've been trying, in our quiet, to turn the mirror on my self and discern this reflection that looks back. To find out what it is I really feel about us. To uncover whether I really want us to go on.

It has been hard. My mirror is too clouded with the things I don't like about you.

I know that one of the reasons I persevere is probably because I am too afraid and it is too difficult to unwind our position. The telling of friends, the getting used to being alone once more. The getting on with life in the every day without someone next to me.

Aloneness, is a scary thing. I can endure it, but I'd rather not. At least that, is clear to me.

But then, for as long as I endur this, am I depriving myself?

Let me think about what it is I love about us.

I love that you make me laugh. That you are so weird and eccentric you make me laugh. But you don't like that. You think that I am mocking you when in fact, my laughter is a sign of fondness, of loving, of cherishing the oddities that make you the person you are.

I love that you calm me when I am stressed out. But lately, you don't seem to have the energy to do it any more, in the same way I often now am so blase about the things I hate about you - your inertia, your promising to do something and my assuming you won't.

You know, these days, I don't take your promises seriously anymore. That's what has become of us. I don't even give you benefit of the doubt. I assume you won't do it.

Because you have disappointed so many times.

So much so that when you do deliver, I am surprised.

There were many things in the early days that I loved about you. You took charge on vacations. You took care of me. You told me stories at bedtime, and held me. You planned with me and dreamed with me.

Now I do all the dreaming. And I think that is the saddest truth about us. That you don't dream with me any more. You don't want to go on vacations with me any more. You just come along for the Me ride. You're a passenger.

Yes, maybe that's what we have become. A cab driver and her passenger, except I dictate where we are going. You just sit in your seat and surrender.

Sometimes I wonder, is it the money? And often I assume it is the money. But I have also seen you spend, and find money and save when you want something. You're not incapable of it. I realise that now. Which means, in my mind, that you simply don't care any more. You don't care to save for tickets to a show, or a concert, or a holiday.

OK.

I think, more than ever now, that it's time we ended this.