5. Termination - proposal fails to rectify issues and no further solutions are accepted or applied.
The thing is..you think, yeah, finally, getting out from under this yoke, this constant source of pain and regret, that's going to be better. New place, new paint, wallpaper, set up the tv, making it your own. So then you sit there, doing what you used to do, reading, Facebook, thinking about fixing dinner, and it feels like it didn't even happen, like the last 8 years just disappeared, lost time, the aliens were really thorough. Go back to the house and he's changing things, replacing things, and you can feel yourself being erased, bit by bit. Soon you'll be gone. (Finally!)
So you try to grasp this void, this cancellation of meaning, and there's nothing there to grasp. The constant stream of memories that you took for granted now seem insubstantial, like something remembered from a movie. Folders full of photos of people that no longer exist. Good times, many many good times, so many good feelings, the certainty of safety, of love, of being understood, retroactively invalidated and transformed into silly old pictures in some future hipster's thrift store frames.
Somewhere in all this navel gazing you have to accept it: he'll be fine without you, the babies will be fine without you, the plants will be fine without you, the neighbors will be fine without you, it'll be just like you were never there. Look at the webcam from your Hawaiian vacation hotel; there, out in the water, that's where there's a little coral head you can stand on to stay still in the surf. Here's where we spread our towels. Remember the pretty Japanese girl at the steakhouse, that ate her meal, then her parents too? Bananas Foster pancakes at Denny's? (Who are you asking?)
You couldn't fix this. You really couldn't! Things had to go this way. You'll be better off, in the long run. But..who are you, again? If not his partner, then..? (void) Next month the doctor will ask how your sex life is going, as he does, and what will you say? Best to plan ahead. See chapter 2, "Review and Painful Relinquishment."
It seems impossible that you'll forge ahead, writing new data over the fragile, tenous, treasured old. But you will. Somehow that hurts as much as anything else, that you will go on, you will heal, you will forget. You will be okay without them, too, eventually, incredibly, and it's really rather terrible and unforgivably human of you, isn't it?
So you try to grasp this void, this cancellation of meaning, and there's nothing there to grasp. The constant stream of memories that you took for granted now seem insubstantial, like something remembered from a movie. Folders full of photos of people that no longer exist. Good times, many many good times, so many good feelings, the certainty of safety, of love, of being understood, retroactively invalidated and transformed into silly old pictures in some future hipster's thrift store frames.
Somewhere in all this navel gazing you have to accept it: he'll be fine without you, the babies will be fine without you, the plants will be fine without you, the neighbors will be fine without you, it'll be just like you were never there. Look at the webcam from your Hawaiian vacation hotel; there, out in the water, that's where there's a little coral head you can stand on to stay still in the surf. Here's where we spread our towels. Remember the pretty Japanese girl at the steakhouse, that ate her meal, then her parents too? Bananas Foster pancakes at Denny's? (Who are you asking?)
You couldn't fix this. You really couldn't! Things had to go this way. You'll be better off, in the long run. But..who are you, again? If not his partner, then..? (void) Next month the doctor will ask how your sex life is going, as he does, and what will you say? Best to plan ahead. See chapter 2, "Review and Painful Relinquishment."
It seems impossible that you'll forge ahead, writing new data over the fragile, tenous, treasured old. But you will. Somehow that hurts as much as anything else, that you will go on, you will heal, you will forget. You will be okay without them, too, eventually, incredibly, and it's really rather terrible and unforgivably human of you, isn't it?