We Both Feel Sad

So, I've been demoted.

A few weeks ago, I was a partner. Now, I'm a friend.

I haven't exactly been kicked out, but I've been shown the open door. Everything is in halves: maybe we'll make love sometimes, maybe we won't. What does it mean to be a friend when you're in love?
It means trying to cherish your beloveds distance from you. It means having an acre of love and a tabletop to put it on.

Tonight, we're not sleeping together for the first time in a long time. Nancy calls and says she's sad.
I'm sad too, but it's not the same sad. She's doing something that needs to be done and she's sad because she knows it hurts me and because she's going to miss the goodness between us. I'm sad because I think this is a waste and waste is ugly. I hate wasting beauty, I hate wasting goodness.

I want her to have what she wants to have. I do. And so, I'll do all the right things, take myself out the open door, not hang around or act as if I had some right to be near her. I'll protect my heart, I'll cry, but I won't burst in.

I'll even try to be a friend. I will, and I can't imagine what will happen on the day she tells me there's another man. I should probably arm myself: go online, be charming. But I think it would be another waste.
I'll take the opportunity to feel the pain of this. I'll medicate judiciously: creativity and good food, maybe some art and music. But mostly I'll just feel the pain and see what comes of it.

The bright side? You mean there's a bright side? Well, maybe. I've been wanting to do some deep diving into my self. I don't want to do it for someone else and I don't want it to be too closely supervised by my lover. This needs to be me alone doing the work with a therapist, or two therapists and a guru and a counselor and a facilitator and maybe even a personal trainer. In a certain world, it would be a good thing that nancy dumped me. I just don't happen to live in that world yet.

It's not the booby prize-being able to do this growth work now, but I wish...oh, you can guess what i wish.
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The worst part is going to bed. I could play with the pain downstairs, but I dread getting into bed.
So I've medicated by staying up-watching youtube videos- now I am drunk with fatigue.