'Still Fighting It'

It was pain
Sunny days and rain
I knew you’d feel the same things

Everybody knows
It hurts to grow up
And everybody does
It’s so weird to be back here.
Let me tell you what
The years go on and
We’re still fighting it, we’re still fighting it
Oh, we’re still fighting it, we’re still fighting it

Even though this is a song that Ben Folds wrote for his son (with a video that I highly recommend for its touching father/son moments), it is one that has stuck with me and often comes to the surface when I hit a snag.

In case it wasn't obvious from the last post of lyrics, things are not well between the boy and me. We broke up Tuesday night. Because we love each other. And are both too goddamned practical.

As I think I mentioned when I wrote about our space talk, we're both at points that we really need to figure out what we're doing with our futures. I told him that I had come to the firm conclusion that I needed to leave Portland come fall when my lease is up, because I'm increasingly just not happy being here. I'm not really surprised since this was never meant to be permanent--at least part of me is surprised that I've made it even this long. I'm just too much a big city boy to ever really be comfortable in as small a place as this. I told him, though, that I hadn't managed to think very far down the road of leaving because he kept coming up very quickly in my thoughts. Since he may or may not be staying here, I didn't want to think about moving too far if he was still going to be here. I acknowledged that that was thinking rather far ahead, since a lot could happen between now and the fall, but that's where I'm at right now.

For his part, he hadn't gotten very far to thinking about what his plans might be but had mostly been thinking about us and realised that he wasn't in a place that he felt he could make the decisions that he needs to make and fairly take someone else into account. He also said that he just didn't feel sure enough about us to make that kind of jump in thinking about a shared future at this point.

It all comes down to figuring out what's best for both of us. As usual. That's why we broke up. Because we want what's best for each other.

Not that I'm happy with this. Far from it. I've mostly managed to stop crying at the drop of a hat. It's not easy to hear that the other person isn't totally sure about a relationship when you've never been so sure about something ever in your life. But I know that there's little that I can do. We both still very much want to be a part of the other's life. We just have to figure out how to make that work. We'll see how it goes.

And just in case any of this sounds familiar, it's because I did this almost exactly a year ago, when I was getting ready to leave Montréal. Except that it made so much more sense then. And I didn't feel nearly as sure about the guy I was seeing then as I feel about this guy.

My teenaged co-worker, after I told him why I was in such a bad mood on Wednesday, said to me, 'At least you don't have leprosy!' He also suggested that I could do a Google Image search for 'tape worms'.

There is always that, I suppose.