When I told him I loved him and then we broke up.

On Thursday, my friend Joanna and I had stayed up half the night while she worked on artwork as a gift/commission for Daniel and I. She has this tendency to draw and be inspired by all my dates and I had been pestering her to draw us and I finally bribed her to draw us. She used an actual photo of Daniel in his custom riding jacket, and actual photos of his custom bike- a Triumph Scrambler to do it. It is us. Our clothes, our faces, and our hearts.

It had been such an awful week that I really needed a pick me up, and she finally got it done on early Friday morning. I had an easy print done at FedEx on 60# paper and carried it with me up the sidewalk on G Street to his sweet little apartment and I worried what I would find there.

I loved it, but I carried it with a heavy heart.

Daniel's security building door has been broken the last couple of weeks, so although I have the door code, I couldn't knock on his door since it hasn't been working. As I walked up, I remember I saw the slat for the blinds swinging, as if it had just been adjusted, and they were wide open so I knew he had to be home. I knocked on the window and peered in. All was quiet for a moment, and then he hesitatingly peered around the corner and saw me looking back at him. Slowly and sort of softly he disappeared around the corner and I walked to the front door.

It took what felt like a long time for him to get to the front door and I began to worry he wasn't actually coming to the door to let me in. Could he actually do that? But before I really had time to worry about this, he finally opened his front door, and then opened the main building door.  And stood there.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

And the thing I was afraid he would say was the answer... "I don't know."

I asked if I could come in, and my memory of this right now is that at first he said, I don't know, but that may not be right. Because we did go in, just not immediately. We stood at the building door for a little bit, looking confused and upset. But then we walked inside to his apartment hallway, and stood there in the dark.

I told him, if he ever needed alone time, or space, or if something was wrong, he could ALWAYS ask me for it and I would ALWAYS give it to him. And he said he knew that. And then he said... He was just in this weird place. And I asked him what that meant... And he said he didn't really know. But, it had something to do with his ex.

And my soul stung. And tears began to hit my cheeks.

We walked into the apartment all the way now, because now that he admitted what it was, we knew we were having a problem. A problem that couldn't just be talked about in the hallway.

I guess once he said it, it made it real. As long as he held me guard outside the apartment, it's almost as if he could keep it from happening, but once I wrestled and pushed my way in, he had to tell me. And then he couldn't stop this conversation from happening. This conversation that would let me in on the confusion that had been tormenting him.

I sat down on the arm of the couch and he sat down next to me. Like it would be a short conversation. Or as if I was no longer welcome in this apartment that he had shared with her. As soon as he mentioned her, it was as if I had been alienated or banished from the home. This little apartment I had loved and kissed him in. Watched movies and listened to records on vinyl. Lovingly watched him play guitar. We hadn't even said anything, but everything about my body language screamed the rejection I had already accepted. Thinking on it now, I had one too many break up conversations with my college boyfriend. And that was a disservice to me. My little heart is not as spirited as it should be when it goes into battle.

We sat together, and we both cried. He told me he had been emailing his best friend the last couple of weeks saying he missed her. He didn't really get why... But he understood now it was incredibly arrogant of him to think he could go from one relationship to the next without processing the loss. I told him he was grieving and he said that was the best word and I talked about the bereavement certification I had gone through. We talked a lot in that class about how divorces, separations and break ups mimic the feelings of a death. Especially if there is no contact afterwards. Uncoupling is difficult, and can be even more difficult if there is an element of rejection. When a spouse is lost to death, you often have the reassurance that they loved you. In a separation, there is no reassurance of this, and it shakes the person in a different way. Relationship books on loss go into this in depth. I've read about them for both death, and separation, and did the certification. It's always discussed. Always.

We talked about him being depressed, and his confusion over his feelings- mostly his feelings of loss, and he described as a big black cloud that had snuck up on him and just consumed him. And then he didn't know how to talk to me about it. He had wanted to, and he had been trying to figure it out, and that's why he hadn't responded yet. He wanted to work it out in his head first before he came to me. I told him how much he worried me, and that I had been frantic, and driven past his house to check on him, and all of the terrible scenarios that had gone through his head. And he seemed to know that that was where I was at. But he just ... couldn't be present. He was so checked out and so far gone he just couldn't come back to me to check back in. He was so messed up. He apologized for worrying me. It wasn't his intention. He just had to be gone. I asked if the concert was fun and he said... Not really. Apparently they ran into friends of his exes. They were in that neighborhood and I think it was just more rawness for him. I don't know if he socialized with them or they were friendly, I didn't ask. I just saw the pain on his face and it was enough. He had already run into the ex herself at a concert he had invited me to in October and I am sure that was not good for anything. He called that show cathartic, but part of me wonders. I also wish I had been there. Maybe it would have changed something for him to merge his past and present. I don't know.

At this point I said, I don't know if this is a stupid question, but "Are you saying you want this to be done?" And he said he didn't know. That was more towards the beginning of the conversation, and again a reason why he wasn't ready to have this conversation with me. He didn't know. He has feelings for me. He cares about me. He didn't think he wanted me to go anywhere.

But the further we got along in talking he said at some point... He can't do this. It's not that he doesn't want to. It's that he can't. He can't take care of, or accept himself. He feels like a failure, with his personal life and a litany of other things. I stopped him, and I told him, you understand, I accept you for all of those things right? I accept you for the entire package you come in. And he said... But I don't.

He said he can't even begin to start to take care of another person and my feelings and needs.And it's going to be a long time before he gets into that place. Probably at least until after the bar. At this point, I began to sob. Giant, heaving, uncontrollable sobs. I just lost it.

It was so raw and painful I could not hold it in, and he could not hold me tight enough to make it stop. He had to get up and walk away from me, which, I think is a first in any break up conversation I've had with a man. The pain was too intolerable to him. At least that's how I took it. He went and got me a glass of water and stood behind me and rubbed my back but he didn't sit beside me again. I think he just couldn't bear it.

All I could think was, 7 months without this kind, wonderful, loving man... How can I do this? It felt final. How much could happen in that time and I didn't want anything to change. Oh, how I loathe change.

He came around and stood in front of me and told me that he had dinner plans with his sister. I was angry. He had and I had a date that day. How could he have made plans with her? (And now reflecting back, that also means he had reached out to her, and he hadn't reached out to me during that quiet time when I was so worried. Although, she must have been the only one, because he told me that he had at least 17 text messages from people asking if he was okay, and they were worried about him on Saturday morning when he turned his phone back on- it had been off.) I told him we were not going to rush this conversation and that could he please text her and push back dinner plans by at least 30 minutes so we could have more time. He didn't argue, he just did it.

At some point he sat on the couch, while I stayed on the arm rest, and I negotiated us cuddling in bed. At first he said yes, we could cuddle on the couch? And I said no. I wanted to cuddle on the bed. His bed had been the center of his home for most of our dating life. He hadn't even had a couch until the last couple of weeks and we had used his bed as a make shift couch in his living room. It had been our dining room table, our music center, where we watched movies, did homework, worked on the computer, and made out. It's also not the bed he had with his ex. It was our spot. Like a big comfy cocoon that we had nestled down into. Logistically, his couch was also just tiny and there was no real way for him to just hold me either, which is what I needed.  I needed to be able to hug him, and to be hugged by him. As I told him, "I'm not going to try and initiate something if that's what you are worried about." And so, with some reluctance, he climbed into the bed with me, which had been recently moved into the master bedroom.

It is interesting to me now, that his dark cloud appeared about the same time he moved his bed. His ex's bed used to be in the master, and his was in the guest bedroom. When she left, he moved his into the living room, which is how I knew his home. At first I had refused to come over- a bed in the living room? Get a couch! But eventually I succumbed and I really preferred the bed to the couch. There was more room to spread out. It was more comfortable, and I could fall asleep while he did home work and we watched the news. It was bliss. But now I wonder. When he moved the furniture... it meant things had moved on, and also he was sleeping in that room he had shared with her. I just wonder how much that bothered him. Whether he realized it or not.

He laid on his back, and at first I tried to make him spoon me, but he stayed squarely on his back, so choking back tears again, I turned over and laid my head on his chest and he wrapped his arm around me. We talked for awhile. He cried. I cried. I would make a joke and we would laugh a little. Then I told him I had something shitty to tell him and he wouldn't like it. He said he deserved it and to go ahead. I said he already knew what I was going to say... And then he sighed a little and said Oh. Because then he knew. And I paused for a long time, because I began to become overcome with emotion. But I wanted to say it. And I told him, I know you wanted to say it first, but I don't want us to leave each other and for me to not say how I felt. I don't want to regret not sharing that with you. I don't want to hold anything back. And I paused for a long time, and cried into his belly. And then I told him I loved him.

I said it a few times. And he wiped back tears, and we held each other.

And he said how much he wished he could say it back. That he wanted to love me, but he just wasn't there. He jumped with me. He jumped when I jumped. He leaped when I did off that cliff. ... And halfway down his foot got caught on a rock, and no matter what he did he just remained stuck in this spot and he could not go further than he was right now. He was trapped. And he didn't want to be there, but there he was.

Around quarter to 5 he noted the time and we got up and put our shoes on and I collected my things and put my water glass away and used the restroom. I remember looking in the mirror and wiping away the smears of my mascara thinking- this is the last time I will ever be in this bathroom, in this apartment. I love this apartment. I love this man. I don't want to be apart from him. I tried to look at everything really hard so I could remember it.

We hugged and kissed each other in the hallway, and again at the door, and then again on the sidewalk. As he hugged me one last time I told him I loved him again. He offered to walk me to my car, and said he was worried about me, but I told him, he was under no obligation to do anything at this point. So he walked across the street to his little station wagon, and I walked back up the sidewalk alone, my shoulders heaving choky sobs. I felt like the moment we parted he took a part of my soul with him. I suppose that is true with every person we love, but this separation hurt me on a level I won't ever be able to articulate.