Sometimes It Hits Me That There’s Just No Way To Avoid The Pain Of The Ending Of Relationships. I Have

Sometimes it hits me that there’s just no way to avoid the pain of the ending of relationships. I have tried and failed to just not make connections with the people around me. I’ve experienced, according to my therapist and Google statistics, more than the average amount of deaths-of-close-loved-ones, abuse, shunning, and whatnot. Makes sense. But sometimes I look at new friends, old friends, potential futures, and all I can see is me sitting on my bathroom floor the night after my fiancé died, feeling so much pain I didn’t know if I would ever come out the other side of it at all. And I think, “that’s the price of this. That’s what you know this will end in, and you chose it anyway.” And as inspiring as that is (like: testament to the power of love that I’d choose it even when it’s so painful), it’s also just exhausting. Like, I’ve been through the funerals, and the angry goodbyes, and the email goodbyes, and the crying at the airport, and the sort-of-happy-crying over new babies and marriages, and the last outings with close friends before moving away, and the last Sundays before leaving churches, and the thought of doing it all again, worth it or not, is exhausting. It’s just exhausting. Like how grandparents just aren’t able to raise babies because they’ve already done it and they’re old and retired and tired now. That’s how I feel. I’m tired.

And yet

If I bump into your cart at the supermarket, I’m going to laugh and apologize and tell you I like your sweater and if you’re friendly and not on a tight schedule that day you might smile and strike up a conversation, and we might share a love of some item in both of our baskets and I’ll offer you a recipe that uses it and then two years later I’m texting you to see if you want to meet up for coffee at our usual spot and at that point I care about you and you care about me and we’re friends and if you tell me you have terminal cancer I’ll be fucking devastated.

There’s no way to avoid these things. There’s no way to meet a quota. As long as I’m alive, my heart is always at risk of shattering into a billion tiny aching pieces from one phone call, one conversation, one funeral. I love the ones I love now, and I choose love in my life. And I’m tired.