For one, I looked through our door's peephole as he carried his luggage down our hall for the last time (because, like the last break-up, I seem to love torturing myself). There is a similar hurt here too, because I also pictured us getting married and having kids; and when it was good, it was good, and then.. it wasn't enough.
On October 22, 2023, I wrote this in my journal about Ivan (we had been dating for a month at this point):
I feel like I could cry when I think about how different he is from any guy I've ever dated. He embodies almost every quality, and more, in those before. ... I just feel deeply in my soul that it's him I'm sitting next to on a bench with graying hair. I feel loved in every corner and every space of me that I've never been loved before.. and the fullness of it may not exists now (per se), but it is growing in a way that I see very clearly. All I know is, I'm falling deep and I just wanted to write this down because whichever way it goes, I'm all in.
On August 5, 2025, among a growing collection of notes written through teary eyes, I wrote:
I mourn for a version of this relationship that I hoped would exist. I mourn for that feeling that I thought was irreplaceable. Please please please believe him when he shows you who he is by telling you who he thinks you are - a b*tch who tricked him into moving to New York and giving up everything.
How did we get here?
Two years with anyone is significant.
Add to that two years someone who packs up his life in California (away from any family or friends), takes a job at the same small law firm as you (offered by the partner as a risk, but courtesy to you and your budding romance), moves in with you in your aunt's basement for three and half months (in a household of all women), moves into an apartment in Manhattan with you (which costs nearly 10k just to do) and shares in the responsibility of having a dog he didn't expect to have.
I remember when the fights started happening... usually on the walks from Penn Station into the office. Then, on many occasions at our apartment... where we could conveniently rotate who slept in the living room (if I planned to be up early, or wanted to watch TV late) and who slept in the bedroom. When they first began, and the rose-colored glasses were still intact, I remember that I liked that he stood his ground and didn't just easily give into me. I reasoned that to love passionately must mean that you fought passionately (a bit toxic, in hindsight).
The fights were about nothing, and then, everything: work, me rearranging the apartment all the time, anxiety about Chloe, people-pleasing, tone, money, jealousy, regret, pressure, attachment, dependency, depression.
I said once that I'd be just fine without him.
He said once that I'm difficult to love, and would have a hard time finding anyone else.
By the end of it all, I think we resented each other deeply.
Maybe him more than me. Maybe me as a result of him. In every fight there was always someone who felt judged, misunderstood, or unappreciated. We brought out the worst in each other, and these struggles revealed a very wobbly and imperfect foundation that we could never quite build up after discovering - and we tried (couples therapy, interventions with third-parties, long talks).
We never mastered how to fight for each other without fighting each other.
I said, "you're losing me.." and he said, "well, you're losing me too." And I'd fall asleep, again, with cheeks stained with tears.
The good memories are ...
- our first date, ice creams in hand, swinging on playground swings ... and me, crying to him about missing my grandma - and him, doing that thing he'd do: grabbing his chest, as if to physically sooth a pain in his heart;
- our second date - a sunset picnic at the beach... getting a ticket because we stayed talking until well past sunset (4 hours to be exact);
- going to Morro Bay and camping in an SUV with our make-shift sleeping bags and pillows, reading books while the rain poured outside at night;
- us on a rock on an LA mountain, daydreaming about moving to New York;
- the late night talks in bed in hushed whispers like we'd wake up the neighbors;
- lunches together at our desks;
- the before-bed prayers we started doing after seeing a couple do it on Couples Therapy;
- watching trash reality TV, like love island, and making our own intros "my name is ______, and I always get what I want;" and his dance to the outro-music;
- the "family couch cuddles" with Chloe squished in the middle;
- the two hour car rides to and from Connecticut;
- thrifting;
- sushi plates;
- "merry swissmiss" (for hot chocolate)
- frequently stopping mid-sentence, mid-conversation, just to add: "I love you so much. Anyway, blah blah blah,"
I laughed harder in these two years than I have ever laughed in my life - even on the random, insignificant days. I felt deeply loved, protected, appreciated, and understood... until I wasn't.
The hurt in me says... love was not enough.
What, then, does "forever" even mean, when we say it. I felt that I would've fought for this forever, in old age, with gray hair, because I had determined that the worst fights were worth the likely end.
In the final days together, I looked into his eyes, and I saw a sadness that I knew I'd never be able to heal, and he saw in mine, a lifetime of expectations he would never meet; and we both knew, love should never be this hard. So we let go.
The love in me that still lingers says ... we went through enough.
Enough bad to know there's better. Enough good to know it wasn't a waste and we tried.
Today (probably because I sobbed while typing most of this out..) I feel lighter. Every picture we had taken in this past year had a caveat "... but we almost broke up that day," "oh, we got into a fight right after that.." A lot of people have said, "we wouldn't have known!" - isn't social media funny like that..
This break-up has felt devastating; like losing a best friend (again), and watching memories and daydreams of a possible forever fade out (dramatic).
It also feels like a homecoming (to self), an exhale after a marathon with hills, and a meaningful redirection.
I'm doing things I didn't have to do before, and I am healing a lot of parts of me that I didn't know needed healing.
I still believe in a forever kind of love because I see it and feel it from the people in my life; and one day, these silly little blogs will be a reminder of the journey it took to get there.
Yours until then (but hopefully not in the same way),
Camille
