Deeper

Until today, the breakup has been pretty positive for my relationship with K. After some much-needed alone time, we've been chatting often. Emailing. Making plans. Being nice to and about each other.

See, the thing is: even though I'm ridiculously judgmental, I don't cling to my judgments. In fact, generally the second after I've formed one, I start compiling evidence for the contrary, just in case.

And so, when I say that, with the exception of a few weeks of temping that I nearly had to go on a hunger strike to get him to do, K has been unemployed for the entire nearly-five years that we've been together, a little voice in my head pipes up to say that, of course, we've been overseas for almost all that time. I think it might be K's voice, come to think of it. No matter. The point is, there's a reasonable possible explanation for this extraordinary factoid. And although I think to myself that other American unmarried partners managed to navigate the foreign bureaucracies and secure legal employment, and I think that, in his stead, I likely would have done as they did; the thing is, I can't say that for sure.

Which is moot, as K seems to have missed the deadline for applying to my employer, though we'd agreed that this would be a good option to have open. The rationalization in this instance was flimsier than most, which is why it caught my attention -- much as it took our being back in the US for an entire year with K not seeking work for me to surmise that perhaps our being overseas hadn't been the problem in the first place.

Micro and macro. On the micro level, there's always a reason, and, often, it's even a fairly compelling one. On the macro level, the nixed-at-the-last-minute romantic getaway (which I'd both planned and would be paying for; all he had to do was not change his mind about showing up) that precipitated our breakup was the latest in a series of...well, pretty much all of our travel...to have gone through a similarly tortuous and torturous route from conception to execution (see, for instance...oh, I don't know; pretty much this entire blog).

When K moved out, he had a specific plan. He was going to drop his stuff at his sister's. (I'd offered to let him keep it here. K: "Don't take this the wrong way, but I could too easily imagine you dumping it all out in the street if you thought I'd done something stupid while I was gone." E (mulling over the accusation): "So don't do anything stupid.") And then he was going to make a few specific stops heading west, for particular job opportunities. It wasn't a bad plan.

I tried not to be unduly unshocked when his stated departure dates from his sister's began to stretch like a rubber band. Stops got changed, then dropped. It's now been three weeks. He's still at her place, and he has no plan. Reasons? Of course. And reasonable, yet. But what kind of social scientist would I be not to examine the entire pattern and ask whether it could truly be attributed to the rather random reasons he proposes?

A less lonely one, probably. K and I are no longer chatting often. In fact, we've agreed that it'd be best if we stopped talking entirely. And, for the very first time, I've gone from thinking of this split as needed respite and perspective before reaffirming (and perhaps solemnizing) our relationship to thinking...geez, maybe that's really it for us.