May 3, 2006
200 Words About Breaking Up


We broke up last year.

After nearly thirty years together, the relationship just wasn't working for me anymore.  Things between the two of us had become stale and predictable.  I felt irritable and twitchy whenever we were together, headachy and exhausted whenever we weren't.  I was beginning to resent the work (and money, and time) it took to keep us together. Plus I found myself lying awake, night after night, obsessing over the situation like a puppy worrying a chew toy.

"It's over," I said finally.

But it wasn't over, of course. Not completely. You don't spend four decades together and then just break things off, overnight. After three months apart, I said "Let's work something out."  So we hammered out a compromise.

We see each other in the mornings, but only briefly. Never in the afternoons, except for the occasional Friday, and never at night. We'll get together at my office, but only on special occasions. And the minute I start finding myself lying awake at 2:12 a.m. ... heart pounding, head spinning, feeling like sleep is something I used to do in a previous life  ...

...  caffeine and I go right back to being Broken Up.





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