Preceeded with caution

I don't recognize who I am anymore

I don’t remember the last time we had s*x. I’m not sure if I know who he is anymore or maybe this is exactly who he’s always been and I’ve just idealized some version of him this entire time. In a small brown leather notebook I scribble this while silently wondering what I’m doing, why we’re fighting so much to make this work. I look at the deliberately unanswered texts on my phone, skim the personal ads on Craigslist, and browse sublets in Berlin, because an escape in any form seems much easier than dealing with the utter bullshit that is heartbreak. I do this over and over until I have so many tabs open on my computer it’s overwhelming. I close them all and suddenly realize it’s now 5 a.m. and there are actual people waking up now to start their day. I look out the window and think about how the time between 2 and 5 in the morning is a bit dangerous; a time when everything seems so real. You give in to your strongest desires and then when morning comes and you’re staring at the bottom of your coffee cup, you wonder if any of it happened at all. I blink my eyes and look at his last text – how am I not myself?Iceland, which smells of figs, sulfur, fresh snow, and wet hay becomes our home for 2 weeks. We take this trip because a change of scenery will do us some good we say, confidently, outwardly to each other at first and then to our friends who ask. During the day we walk the streets of Reykjavik in search of geothermal pools, whale tours, art film houses, anything to keep our mind off the inevitable truth that’s looming – as much as we love each other, we also can’t f*****g stand each other anymore, and a trip to Iceland isn’t going to cure anything. But we continue to pretend, so we go camping in the westfjords and try to drink our sadness away on the beach. On the plane ride home we look at each other and sigh. This isn’t working.There are ghosts that live inside my skin – the continual longing for something that once was but will never be again. I can feel him in my sleep – how the sadness beats in rhythm with my heart as I stir between dreams. He is there and he is not there but I reach for him anyway. It all feels so cliche – the pain, the heartache – knowing in 6 months // 1 year // 3 years, this will all just be nothing more than a memory. Physically and emotionally, everything seems so far away right now. I no longer want to be saved. I don’t recognize who I am anymore but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It could be a great thing. A positively wonderful thing but it all has to stop. It all has to stop before I go completely and utterly mad. So I lose myself in writing, in drinking, and in the company of others until I’m so exhausted I collapse in my bed every night. Later on I’ll find a note I wrote to myself – 02.16.2011 2:31 a.m. – There are many ways to drown.