Thank you for the kind words in the guestbook.

Well I guess I should explain things as best I can.

A couple of weeks ago, James and I came very close to breaking up after I seriously overreacted to his being away for the weekend (I'm still embarrassed about that). Instead, we talked it out and realized that maybe we needed to try and make some time for ourselves too, which was no small challenge since we live a good 45 minute drive from each other, he works 8-5 all week and we were only seeing each other on weekends anyway (for the entire weekend, making it difficult for us to get things done that we needed to get done). I also realized that I'd started to lose myself in the relationship. It's a problem I have with serious relationships. I don't have the strongest sense of identity (although I may appear to at times), and sometimes when I become very close to someone my identity sort of gets wrapped up in them and my relationship to them. So then instead of doing things in my free time that I enjoy and developing myself, it becomes more about just killing time between the times I get to see them. So I vowed to work on this, and to work on becoming more confident. I think it was actually starting to work, too, but it's no small process.

Yesterday James admitted that he was still finding the relationship too stressful, especially now that we had to plan our time together so carefully, and I guess he just wasn't happy anymore. He said he thought that deep down his feelings might have changed. He said he still loved me and that I was very important to him, and I know it wasn't easy for him to do. I of course looked for solutions ... saying things like "are you sure it's not just that we need to [fill in the blank]?", and then when I realized there was nothing more I could say, I pretty much just broke down into tears and started saying "no" over and over again. Ugh. I'm sorry I put him through that, but I couldn't seem to stop myself.

We did end it amicably though, after the messiness. We're hoping to remain very good friends as long as we're still capable of it. I'm not sure how I'll handle it. I want to be friends so badly; he wasn't just my boyfriend, he was my best friend and still is as far as I'm concerned. I'm just not sure how I'll deal with hanging out with him and not being able to kiss him, not being able to spend the night with him (and no, I didn't even mean it like that), not talking to him on the phone every night. I definitely don't know how I'll handle it if he starts dating someone else early on. I think that just might kill me. It's so heartbreaking to lose someone who's everything to you. I'm not even sure what's worse, trying to be good friends after a two and a half year relationship and dealing with all that's involved in that, or going from having a two and a half year relationship with him to not seeing or talking to him anymore. Right now the latter seems much worse, but I may feel differently if I try to hang out with him and end up finding it unbelievably painful. I had to fight the overwhelming urge to call him last night because it's just so strange not to talk to him on the phone in the evening. We will contact each other at some point, hopefully within the next couple of days (though we never put a time limit on it), but right now I want to give him the space he probably needs, so I think I'm going to let him contact me first. I may become really strung out before then and need to talk to my best friend, in which case I will call him and hope that he doesn't mind, but for now as long as I can keep myself sane, I'm going to let it be.

I'm feeling a bit better than I expected to feel after James went home yesterday, but unfortunately I know that that's just because I'm still in either the shock or denial stage of it all. I still don't fully believe it's happened, or that it's really over. But I know it's just my brain easing me into the grief so that I don't drive myself completely insane. I know that the more painful stages of grief, like fear, anger, and despair will come around soon enough. This article is my reference point. It's actually quite well written, too.

Whatever stage I'm in right now, shock or denial, it's actually quite the bitch because I woke up this morning (far too early for someone who has the day off) thinking "My god .. was it all just a bad dream?", and quickly realized it wasn't. That's just brutal. And I'm sure I'll have dreams in which we get back together and then I'll have to wake up to reality again, too.

I had an MSN conversation with a patient Carn this morning.

Lara: how are you?
Carn: tired. I slept, but it was too hot and stuffy, so I didn't really get any rest as such
Lara: poo
Lara: heh, i'm starting to sound like qui
Carn: as long as you're not as dangerous
Lara: heh .. let's just wait until i get to the "anger" stage of my breakup grief
Carn: eep!
Lara: no, i'm not looking forward to it either [ed note: Not the being like Qui part, but the angry part.]
Lara: i'm seeing how long this denial stage lasts because i'm thinking it might indicate how long the other stages will last
Lara: perhaps i'll make a chart
Lara: and put it on my fridge, with a little ripey progress magnet
Carn: then again, maybe you won't WANT to know
Lara: nah, i think it'll help me
Carn: you could write a paper on it
Lara: actually i read a good one that was bookmarked on my mum's laptop. now i want to see if i can find that
Lara: it was an epinion
Carn: about how long it takes?
Lara: no, just about the individual stages
Lara: there it is
Lara: oh eep .. shock is the first stage, not denial
Lara: maybe i'm still in that .. urrrrgh
Carn: it's funny, because you want to believe that it's stupid and that you'll deal with it in your own way, and none of this preordained stages stuff
Carn: yet it really is the way it happens
Lara: i don't want to screw things up when i get angry, that's the stage i'm most worried about
Carn: been there...
Lara: this is the one time after a breakup where i really think there's a good chance of a friendship remaining afterwards
Carn: you should chronicle all your feelings in a diary
Carn: but not an online diary that anyone else has access to
Lara: well i've reopened .. oh, yes, that too. i think i'll need both
Carn: diaryland is a testament to my progress through those stages when louise and i broke up. It wasn't big of me
Carn: on the plus side, I think bargaining, fear and anger follow on from one another quite closely, so the whole process isn't necessarily proportional
Lara: yes that's true .. i think sometimes you can even go back and forth between stages .. or sort of be in two stages at once
Carn: you'll get there eventually
Carn: or go through the romantic/tragic scenario I outlined last night [This is a reference to that phase I went through when I was both handling my previous breakup and dealing with my lack of friends in the big city, in which I sat about alone in book stores and coffee shops, observing people and scribbling in my paper journal, often trying to be quirky and mysterious in long skirts and boots, characterish hats and stylish-nerd-girl glasses over my 20/20 eyes. That was also around the time I used to casually leave business cards around shops with the URL to this diary and a small blurb about it for strangers to find. It wasn't really successful in terms of meeting many people, but it did amuse those who already read my diary as they read about my stealthy business-card-leaving exploits.]
Lara: hehe. i can probably do both
Carn: I have to gooo again. Need to get showered and out of here. Just let me know when you're at rock bottom and I'll send round the boys. They're clowns though, not thugs, so...you know...they'll encourage lightness of heart and suchlike
Lara: alrighty. thanks for letting me go on about this, i hope it's not too tiresome for you
Carn: don't be daft, I know it sucks for you and there's no real way of dealing with it
Carn: And remember what the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says... Don't Panic!
Lara: ahhhhhhh ... how ironic .. i have that book because james lent it to me and i never got around to reading it.
Carn: erp .. well just...be good
Lara: anyway, thanks, and adios
Carn: ciao

So this is where I'm at right now. It hasn't completely sunk in yet, despite the fact that I haven't been able to eat since breakfast yesterday and I don't even feel hungry (I always seem to lose my appetite during really rough times), and my "OK" periods are interrupted with bursts of tears. Like right now for example. I know it will get worse, and I know it will also get better eventually .. I hope. I mean, I suppose it has to, as long as I let it, and I want to, but it will be so hard to let go. I've never had to deal with a breakup after such a long relationship, and boy, do I ever love James. I probably always will, even though the type of love I feel may change to a more friendship-oriented sort of love eventually. God, I hope we can be friends. I can't even imagine not having him in my life anymore.

All I know is that if I do get through all of this, I will officially consider myself a superhero, and I will buy myself a sparkly red cape. I'll just have to avoid wearing it out in public, lest people expect me to fight crime or something.

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