Stories, Patterns, Numbers

First of all, thanks to all my blogfriends for your comments, encouragement, and support lately. I seriously don't know what I would do without my blog. I'd probably be forced to turn to drug addiction or religion, and neither of those are very appealing options.

There's so much on my mind, I could write eight blog posts right now. I usually like to have some sort of main point or unifying theme, so instead of throwing up everything in one place, I'll try to leave little organized piles. Here's one.

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I went a little overboard complaining to K about the timing of our crisis. It wasn't fair of me to accuse her of bad timing, because there's really never good timing to deliver bad news. And I also know that once you recognize bad feelings, they can get unbearable very quickly. You have to let them out when you have to let them out. It's like throwing up.

Still, my wounded pride was initially focused on asking, "Why now?" Last week she had several interpersonal crises and I was worried about her. I sent her an ecard to let her know that she had done the right thing. (She said she appreciated it.) On the very same day that I was trying to reassure her about her relationships with other people, she told me she was thinking of breaking up with me. Talk about being blindsided.

But there's a lot more to this story than the facts of that one day. The possible end to our relationship at this particular time feels wrong. It goes against all the stories, patterns, numbers, and plans that I've built up for us.

I've already bought plane tickets to visit her at the end of the month. We had tentative plans for her to visit me in early December, and then for me to visit her over the holidays, and possibly for me to meet her family then. We were also tentatively planning on staying together next April at a librarian conference, and her coming with me next June to a family event. Breaking up now would mess up those plans.

We were only a week away from her breaking GF#3's mark on the Snarkbutt mechanical bull of relationships. To end it just before that mark would have seemed cruel. But even if we end it soon after that, we've only dated ten months (as of next week). This relationship feels so much more significant to me than just a 10-month one. If I were to rank her in terms of how much we match, she would be the #1 woman I've ever dated. But even after passing GF#3's mark, she would still only be fourth on the list of my longest relationships. I don't like that disparity. We should last longer because we're so good together.

She is the seventh woman. That was supposed to be significant. If we break up now, it doesn't fit into my pattern of seven at all. And I don't want there to be an eighth woman, which is why I've been focusing so much on the fact that I don't want to date anyone after her. Seven is enough.

Our story is so compelling. Of course, breaking up now wouldn't make the story any less compelling, but I'm not ready for the story to end. If we don't end up together, then it's just another interesting story that ends in heartbreak. It would be a much better story to tell our grandchildren (or grandkitties.) Maybe I've been watching too many episodes of How I Met Your Mother lately.

The library where I work is in temporary digs while they renovate the building. We moved into this temporary location around the same time that K and I started talking about dating. So everywhere I look around this place, I think of that exciting time. We're planning on moving back into the new building in the next month. Although having the relationship last roughly the same amount of time that we were in the temporary location would be a neat and tidy narrative, this is one case where I don't want that. I want us to be more than just a building renovation.

Aside from the heartbreak, letting go of all those patterns and plans would be very difficult.