creation destruction creation destruction

emily and i met almost 6 years ago. in november of 2003, in miami. i will talk more about that when/if i make it to miami. she moved in with me in portland on july 4th 2005. since then we have pretty much always been together until i started this trip. six months ago i left and our relationship was put on standby. we havent talked much to one another and have walked down different paths to becoming better people.

last night we broke up.

realistically we broke up the moment i left portland and left our relationship in limbo. for the first two months or so of this trip i had felt that our relationship - as it was - was over. but then, after i left indiana something changed and i thought that there was not only hope for our future but we would be able to pick up right where we left off, continuing with the things we had decided for our future in the previous years. which included having a kid. and i was excited about that.

i told a number of people that i visited with after indiana that that was my plan. i would go back to pdx, we would pick up, conceive a child and the rest would sort itself out. the person i didnt tell this to was emily. in richmond we had a chance to talk on the phone for a little bit and i told her this. she told me what she thought. and we couldnt have been on more different pages. our conversation was short and in the week that followed i sat and thought about what had happened.

i had conversations with other people, folks that knew both of us and some that had been through similar situations. long relationships that become estranged for varying reasons and eventually they have to end. the picture that i got was that our realtionship was over and i contemplated the decision to break up. it wasnt easy. i spent hours poring over the pros and cons. what tipped the scales was a podcast of savage love that i listened to.

a caller had questions about a long term relationship that had recently ended. the caller and her partner attempted to remain friends, but that wasnt working out and she wanted to know why. certainly there were more details. his advice was because a break-up is basically saying "i want my space, a space away from you right now." he didnt say that a friendship couldnt persist but that a period of mourning for the relationship must take place. he recommended three months before trying to "be friends."

i spent a good two hours over the course of two days staring at the phone trying to convince myself to call emily and officially break our relationship. technically it already was. i had been thousands of miles away for six months and we hadnt kept any kind of regular or consistent contact with one another. eventually i dialed her number and we had the conversation.

i was sitting in a mall parking lot in virginia beach while a hurricane sprayed its last breaths of wind and rain on the region. we talked for a couple of hours - it wasnt until an hour or so into it that i told her i wanted to break up. then i explained why, that it certainly wasnt about someone else, that it was mentally and psycologically for me. physically we were already broken up and apart, no changing that. i needed to start thinking about that as a reality and not think that we could take apart this precious thing and assume it would fit right back together again.

after we talked about other things, my trip, other people the things that had happened and it was so much easier to have that conversation without thinking about our relationship. it was broken and now the bits of it have been put away. it didnt exist anymore. six years of knowing one another four and a half of living together and now we could focus on each other as people, not as partners.

it wasnt easy. and i am not confident that it was the right decision, there is no way that i ever will be or ever could be. it is just what happened, the circumstances of life have put us in this point. when i come back to portland, we are still friends. at least three months have passed where we both have been thinking about ourselves as not a couple. and we see what happens.

afterwards i texted a select few people what had happened, and then sneaked into the movie theatre to try to catch a show. i caught the last half hour of the movie 2012 - that movie doesnt look very good. then i went and slept in a parking garage. it was nice to be out of the rain and let everything have a chance to dry out a little bit.

today i drove to the outer banks of north carolina. a string of islands off the coast, this place was hit heavily by the storm. a large part of it is still underwater and i wont be able to pass all the way through for another couple of days. lets hope for a nice (sunny/windy) day tomorrow and i will go fly my kite as the folks that lost their homes try to rebuild.