Approaching this kind of life-defining anniversary and I've felt my heart swinging up and plunging down and it's just so much.

I have good days now. Lots of them. I planned an impromptu bike/brewery crawl and then an excursion for indian buffet for 5 friends last weekend because T came to town after his dad died and he needed to be distracted. Riding my bike down the hill in the warm September evening felt like pure joy.

There's a sense of possibility and passion in this new chapter of my life. With BT, doing anything *new* together required so much negotiation and I had to take responsibility for it... we couldn't split the responsibility, or riff off of each other to make it better. He wouldn't offer to help so I'd divide the things to make it fair. He'd forget his part or be really negative or do it poorly (once he forgot my sleeping mat when we went camping) or be hopelessly late or usually all of the above. He would come with me or agree to do the thing, but I had to handle all or most of the logistics and kind of cajole him and then i think we'd both feel like he owed me for doing the thing. So I curbed myself, and I compromised.

Things I love and that I can just do now whenever I want: Roadtrips. Having a houseful of friends or family staying for a night or two or five. Spending time with my family. Going to shows. Listening to music loudly. Traveling. Meeting new people. Connecting with old friends. I'm training myself to remember to think of things as exciting possibilities. Like, "I'd love to go to Japan some day". Before I'd think about how I might frame it so BT would want to come and now I just think, “I’d have to save, but that can happen". Anything can happen. Learning to remember that’s a gift and not a frightening abyss I will fall into.

I don't know if this is really true or if it was a dynamic that we'd fallen into, but BT was pretty negative about the things that I'm passionate about. I think he saw them as things that took him away from the life that he wanted to live. I believe in my work and sometimes I really fall into that, and he kind of mistrusted it and was just unsupportive dead weight (and dude was TALL. His dead weight was so heavy).

On the hard days, I remember how much we loved each other and hugs and laughing and making out and eating breakfast at the red table and sitting on his lap after dinner and going for dumplings and holding hands and late night walks around the neighbourhood and How good he was at parking and talking on the phone and biking adventures and being pushed to snowboard or ski beyond my capabilities and how much I loved his legs and his old holey sweaters and how the cold never bothered him and how funny he is and his grilled piripiri chicken and how he loves to design things and all the apples he ate and how he could fix a flat so fast with his big strong hands and much I love the things he built and how he listened and held me when i wept about my father slipping away and and and...

Sometimes I see things that i *know* he would find so funny and I feel so sorry that I can't just glance at him out of the corner of my eye and share the joke without saying anything. We had super interesting and open conversations and we appreciated each other's sense of humour.

When I told him I was pregnant, last September, I couldn't believe that his first words were: "I think our relationship is dysfunctional" but also I wasn't surprised. And the thing is, he was right. But still there were so many moments when I was happy.. No, more than that -there were so many moments when I was full of joy to have him in my life. I thought we were so lucky to have each other. And that was true, but so was all the other stuff I wrote above.

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A few weeks ago I got so mad about all of it and got into a kind of texting fight with BT that culminated in him saying he needed space and me texting, "fine [readers: i did not mean that it was fine] reach out if/when you want to" and He. Fucking. Hasn't. We've been broken up for almost a year so I guess it was time, but we're so close to this anniversary.

This entry is really more about me and BT because I'm not really able to think about the rest of it. It broke my heart to make the choice I did and I still don't know if it was the right thing to do. It doesn't matter, it was the thing that i did. And as much as that was the loneliest and one of the saddest days of my life, at least he was still there, with his heart breaking at the same time, I guess alone but together in our aloneness. Seems strange that I'll mark the day without any word or gesture from him but I guess that's what it is to be apart, giving each other a lifetime of space.

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It ended because I was tired of trying to make it work and I had this sense that it would be better to live without compromising so much of myself. Even though I knew it was going to hurt so much, I wanted —even here it's hard to write about this thing i thought might be possible -- i wanted partnership and passion and love, and I wanted a family, and I wanted it to be real and sure.

There it is - in the past tense. This thing I wanted. God, how hard it is for me to write this.. I've hesitated over this sentence for a very long time. Started it and deleted it and started it and deleted it. I'll say it with a disclaimer. If there was a *whisper* font, I would be using it. I think. I want. Partnership and passion and love, and my own family, and I want it to be real and sure.

I've spent this whole year just really not believing or remembering that I could be open or brave or joyful. Most of all just not feeling confident enough to even aspire to any of those things. But lately I've felt the smallest shift. There's this little spark of something that feels like confidence - like I could reach out, stretch, believe in something, risk. Like I could weather disappointment and not be crushed.

8:46 p.m. - 2019-09-20