I am organising my papers, performing the same routine as when we became done with ‘us’.

Clean slate, with cold turkey – that is what I require.

Don’t know how I’m going to get there, but it is ok – the process of getting there all I need.

Done – I felt so firm with him, telling him how it is and how it can’t be different – at least for now. Telling him we are done, no longer together – we cannot communicate as we used to, cannot keep checking up on each other every day and telling each other every little funny thing. No, this won’t work. – We won’t work. Only I, he can work – independently. To his face, I want to stay strong – firm, decided, clear, certain, not turning back on our commitment to no longer be committed to each other. But a tear scares my fearless face, indicating I am also in the same vulnerable, somewhat lost position as he is. So suddenly can my eyes become heavy with the weight of the tears.

The years that we loved each other seem to be too quick to have ended, too sudden.

Yet, this is a farce. The end was not sudden, it came in stages, and we took reasonable steps to test our compatibility, to test our relationship and then we threw our hands up and said

‘Just shoot me now!’

No longer can we be ‘us’, unequivocally linked in our thoughts, actions and mannerisms.

I must grow up! Out of ‘us’ and into my own shoes again!

I can see this all so logically, all so dramatically rational – but then still be hurt, then still miss each other. Yearning – but for what? For company? For easy sex? For fuck all!

Blameless is our separation, mutual intuition and constant questioning – Why are we ‘us’? When ‘us’ becomes

So fundamentally flawed,

So scary,

So confused and muddled

– Why must our relationship persist? It must not. Done.

In a way, being done contributes more certainty in my life. No longer crying almost every time we meet and then needing 24 hours to recover from this or that unsteadiness and miscommunication.

But seeing him again brings up so many more issues. Makes us question why we are no longer ‘us’ – makes us love ‘us’ again and remember that we still love each other and would drop anything to help each other out.

DONE, though. Unequivocally sighing and the eyes become weighted by tears – again.

I stand my ground, declare a mouthful of reasons why we must have distance.

But when he descends into the darkness, beyond the bikes of the Brotherton, my face wrinkles, forehead frowns and I am lost again. Lost in a feeling of uncertainty – wariness from the prolonged effects of stress of this feared feeling of uncertainty.

‘¾ of the time I feel that we are not to become ‘us’ again, but then that lingering ¼ feeling, that this separation is temporary’ he so eloquently said. So nicely put, so similar I feel. However, feelings never seem to be firm, instead fluctuating in tandem with other emotions and contexts.

Sometimes we just have to remind each other why we are not together and that we mean it – that is fine, in a way healthy, to communicate and ask

‘Are we seriously no longer serious partners?’

YES – DONE

But then slink back into the night time club or library to gather our strength of being single once more. Whoa – single are my former boyfriend and I.

So single, that we find each other attractive again.

So single, that we have opened our sexuality to anyone who we deem fit.

So independent, that we must rely on our friends, family, councillors and meditation teachers for moral and emotional support, in a process of reconstructing our interdependence.

Anon.