I have cried almost every day of this week. When my time is not spent wiping tears off my face, I’m wandering aimlessly like a zombie from meaningless task to meaningless task, passing the time and watching the days go by. I linger around after work so that I can put off going home, where silent emptiness awaits me like a loyal dog. At least when I’m occupied with thoughtless tasks, I am prohibited from lying down and breaking down in tears like I can at home, behind the privacy of closed doors. Nowadays, though I feel physically tired, I lie awake, unable to sleep and feeling like my chest is caving in. Oftentimes I wonder, is this what being heartbroken feels like? Literally feeling like your chest cavity is shattered?

I lie there, in pieces, until the line between consciousness and sleep is blurred to a wispy cloud. Then I lie in a dreamless sleep until I’m jolted awake, forced to meet the new day. Like a child meeting her new governess: being forced to meet someone she already knows she won’t like. A terrible feeling, and now a familiar feeling that I face each day.

I stood in a large room, brightly lit with the morning sun. You entered the room, a blank canvas in one hand and paints in the other.

Paint something, you said. You were always so good at it.

And so I did. I used only black and white because I no longer know my way around colour.

Why don’t you try mixing the two, you suggested.

And so I did. Smudged the black over white repeatedly until charcoal appeared.

I don’t like it, you said. Make it black and white again.

I froze. I don’t know how, I whispered.

I saw your mouth form the words: I’ll be here to help you.

The room blackened with smoke as you turned and left.

As I choked on the smoke that was enveloping me whole, you watched through a small window. Don’t worry, you said over and over. I’m here to help you.

Help me, I pleaded.

I’m here, you replied from the other side.

Everything fades and now all I see is black.

I can’t tell if it is because the room is black or I am blind, or if I’ve shut my eyes in defeat.

I shuffle from place to place, task to task, crying inside; my whole being is burdened with thoughts of you. I want it to stop.

I think all day about what I’d say to you when you finally text (I wondered if you would even reach out at all, and I hoped that you would, just so I could ignore you). Either that or I’d finally tell you that I can no longer handle the torment of being disappointed by you over and over again. I don’t have the strength.

Plagued with a headache, I retreat to bed early and aperitif my slumber with a few chapters from a new book I’ve started. Halfway through chapter 5, I hear the familiar ding of my phone announcing a text. Please, I thought, not you. I don’t want to hear from you.

Of course it was you.

And like an ugly and murky, but calm, lake when a stone is cast into its midst, the emotional sediment that took all weekend to settle to the bottom of my mental being came stirring up again, clouding over everything and swallowing all in its path.

It takes every fibre of my being to refrain from crying. If I cry now, tucked away in my little loft bed, I’d have to climb out of bed to wash my face again. And then I’d have puffy eyes for the third time this week. Puffy eyes aren’t pretty, and I need to feel pretty for the next little while. Because you’ve taken everything from me, and pretty is all I have right now.

I waited in my car, glancing anxiously up at the rear view mirror, watching for your reflection to come bobbing around the corner again.

After the quick and uncomfortable dinner came an even quicker and even more uncomfortable walk. My dad has golf balls for you, I said. Sure, you said. As I handed them over, I felt the familiar heaviness in my chest. The kind of suffocation you feel when you sense a wall, but don’t know why it’s there or how to penetrate its sterile surface.

Nice to see you, you said as you gave me a one-armed hug. There were many things I wanted to say and protests to utter but I kept my silence and got in my car. I watched in the rear view as you rounded the corner, dressed in heather charcoal grey, back down the street from whence we came.

I sat there, in breathless, heavy silence, eyes flickering up at the rear view and willing you to come back into view with a changed mind–on post-dinner plans, on everything.

I sat there, with the engine running for what seemed like an eternity, before I dragged myself away from that strip of road, next to the railroad tracks, peppered with the blooms of community gardens. In that moment I knew you were not going to come back. Not tonight, not ever.

On this radiantly clear and beautiful sunny day, I feel the saddest I have felt in a long time. I wish it was pouring rain today instead so that I wouldn’t feel so bad about sitting inside, in my stupidly hot apartment, away from the golden sunshine and breezy air.

Sometimes you think you really know someone, and you think that despite certain hardships or difficult situations you experience together, your love and care and respect for each other will remain constant and solid. You’re wrong. Sometimes you’re just the fool who believes that those feelings of love, of unconditional friendship and support are reciprocated when in reality, you’re alone in your efforts.

The hurt you feel in that moment of realization is different from the heartache of a broken relationship. You’re at once angry, in disbelief, and crestfallen that after sharing a decade of your lives together, that you could be treated with such chilled nonchalance, that in order for this person to begin to understand your cry for help, you’d actually have to spell it. You’d have to bash them over the head with it, to make up for the fact that this person is absolutely incapable of being empathetic to others, incapable of being sensitive or caring enough to put effort into even trying to understand how you might be feeling. So either this person A) is too dense to realize that maybe things have been really hard for you and that they might reach out just to see how you’re doing, or B) this person has an idea that you might be going through a difficult time but they simply don’t care enough to extend any kind of warmth, in love or in friendship. So which is worse?

It’s finally dawned on me that for the last 6 months, you’ve consistently let me down in the way you’ve treated me. You’ve shown little to no consideration for my feelings, and even when, by some miracle, you actually acknowledge that you’ve done something wrong, it’s just exactly that–an acknowledgement, and not an apology. You do things that are convenient for you, and you make it so that we work on your timeline because you think, subconsciously or otherwise, that you can dictate the terms of our situation. The only time you were proactive in reaching out and showing interest in me, and being nice to me, was when you wanted something from me and when I wasn’t willing to open that can of worms, you went back to being inconsiderate, distant, and cold. I am in complete disbelief that a few days ago, when you knew I was having a difficult time dealing with recent events, you screened my call and didn’t even have the courtesy to call me back and responded only with a sterile text and a suggestion that I put my feelings into an email. An email? Really? Are you fucking kidding me?? What am I, your former college roommate who lives in a different province?? Is that how you treat someone you’ve shared 10 years of your life with, someone who you claim you’ll always be a friend to? You couldn’t even do me the courtesy of calling me back, let alone seeing me and giving me your time to listen to what I have to say, which is what I deserve after all we’ve been through. I did that for you in your time of need, and until yesterday I knew, without a doubt, that I’d do it again. I would rearrange my plans if you were to reach out with a need, and I would go over to see you and listen to you, and be there for you. Instead, you made me feel like I was an inconvenience to you and worse, that I wasn’t important enough for you to revise your plans ever so slightly, so that you can take the time to sit with me and talk with me, as a true friend would. Instead, you brushed me off as if I was an annoying acquaintance from high school who you’re forced to humour occasionally with closed-ended texts. You insinuated that the problem was on my end because I tend to “understate my feelings”. Really? After a decade together, do you really still need me to spell shit out for you? Can you not figure it out with your own brain? It’s not fucking rocket science, it’s really not. Your problem is that you simply don’t know how to treat people like human beings. You’re incapable of putting yourself aside for a moment in order to show support to people who you claim are important to you.

So now you’ve undid all my positive steps forward and, after having dragged me back into a cold, dark emotional place I had worked so hard to leave, abandoned me.

I’ve finally realized that your words are empty and worth nothing because your actions don’t validate them. Maybe it’s my own fault for having expectations of you; I should have known better. I’ll know not to make that mistake again.

I’m sick of having you consume my thoughts and my time. I’ve had enough of the constant wondering, of being disappointed by you over and over again. I can no longer swallow that hollow pain of waiting for that phone call/text/email you know will never come, but blindly hope for anyway. You hope that you’d be wrong and that this person would come through for you, because you want to believe that the underlying foundation of love and friendship will ultimately conquer whatever difficulties you’re faced with.

But sometimes you’re just the fool who blindly believes in something that turns out to be nothing. And then you find yourself sitting inside on a glorious summer’s day, pouring your thoughts and tears out to a virtual space instead of being outside, enjoying life.

Being here is weird. I feel weird. I feel like a zombie, walking around doing things that are important but I don’t feel passion for. I feel kind of empty and lost, feeling like “there must be more to life than this”. I wish to feel alive again, to have purpose and to feel. These days I feel nothing, except for fleeting moments of pleasure and sorrow.

I don’t even laugh that much anymore.

The truth is, I laugh all the time but it is a hollow laughter that comes from a shallow place. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed with my whole being, completely at ease and really feeling that delight and release that comes from a deep laughter.

When I started this entry with the notion that “being here is weird”, I had meant being here in a foreign city alone–really alone this time–for the first time in a long time. But maybe I subconsciously meant “here” to be the emotional place I’m currently in/have been in–or maybe the lack thereof, since emotional limbo is probably a more accurate depiction of how I’ve been feeling:

Neither here nor there.

If you know me, you’ll know that it’s my least favourite place to be. I hate being in limbo, whether it’s my living situation or my belongings or my career path–to me, I feel most comfortable and settled when everything “has a home”: sweaters on the top shelf, belts in the small drawer, nail polish in the top drawer, etc. Right now, I do not have a home.

After a 10 1/2 hour flight (next to a very pleasant, but overly chatty, old man) and a 1 1/2 hour train ride, I’ve finally arrived in Tokyo.

It’s the first time I’ve traveled since the Las Vegas trip that marked the beginning of the end of one of the most important relationships I have ever had in my life, and one that I did and will always hold dear. The feeling is strange: a mixture of excitement, at the act of travelling again, and sadness, when I remember that I will never get to wander through the airport holding his hand, looking for A) coffee and B) trashy magazines to read while he snores, head tilted back and open-mouthed, in mid-flight slumber. I will never discover new places and go on little adventures with him, never feel the gentle tug of his hand on mine as he tries to wrangle me away from yet another It-bag that I cannot afford, and the tender way he says my name as he does so. I will never feel the delightful hop my heart gives when we try a new restaurant and, upon tasting and loving a dish, he exclaims, “Mmmmm!” while chewing wide-eyed. I will never travel with him again, nor will I ever ‘check in’ with him each time I land at my destination when travelling alone, or send emails saying that I’ve arrived safely at my hotel, and that I missed and loved him, couldn’t wait to come home and see him. Those days are gone, never to return.

But it was my choice. My choice to leave, in search of an adventure on my own, to prove something. What exactly? That I didn’t have to ‘rely’ on a partner or a relationship to feel whole and complete? That I could do things on my own, fulfill my duty as a working woman of modern society? Whatever it was, the choice was made and I got what I wanted: to venture out into the world on my own, unencumbered by a loving relationship, discovering new things as a Singleton. It seemed a lot more glamorous when I was looking at it from the other side; these days it loomed over me, casting dark shadows of doubt and loneliness over my thoughts. But like I said, I had made the choice and now I will follow through. Not that I really have a choice; moving backward is not an option. Ever.

But I digress. The point of this entry wasn’t to lament the loss of him or our relationship, but about a book I’d recently started and finished on the plane, entitled “Tuesdays With Morrie”. It is a true story of an old, dying professor who shares his great life lessons with his friend and former student, who was successful by modern North American society’s standards but a failure as a loving, compassionate human being. It’s an easy read and filled with great pearls of wisdom and reminders of love and community, of how we chase money and power all our lives only to see that neither will help us when we lay dying in a wheelchair.

One of my favourite ‘lessons’ from the short book was one on forgiveness: to forgive yourself and forgive others. Life is too short to hold grudges, or to refuse to reconcile a relationship because of your pride. “Love each other or perish”, a quote from the poet W.H.Auden, was referenced several times in the book. I think I will adopt it as my new mantra. My mantra used to be something like “don’t waste your time with idiots, especially the ones who have hurt you; put up a wall against those who have or might hurt you”. I don’t want to play these games anymore. Life is too short to be consumed by pride, to waste time calculating your ‘moves’ as though you’re playing some kind of emotional-chess with someone you want to openly care about, but are held back by pride and ego. I think that I would really like to love openly and fearlessly, and be genuine and compassionate to all. Maybe I’m naive but I don’t really see how things can go wrong when you are generous with love and compassion?

“Love each other or perish.” —W.H. Auden