Reader beware, obviously. I don't think I'd classify it as emo, since I'm actually feeling rather decent about things right now, at least in sort of a cool, detached way, but your mileage for giving two shits about my emotions and internal monologue may vary.
@Strago: The loss of identity part worries me a bit. Was that much of your 'self' wrapped up in this relationship? Even if you have been together for 3 years, surely there are things that were still distinctly 'yours' and things that were just 'hers'.
And, if there weren't, consider this your first lesson for your next relationship - keep some things (activities, interests, songs, friends, pets, books, etc.) just 'yours'. It's just healthier all-around.
It'll be okay. Relationships come and go. It sucks that it hurts, but I trust you have the strength and support of the people around you to get through it. You'll definitely learn a lot from going through this, so try to treat it as a learning experience. It helps.
Your initial comment makes me curious as to the longest serious relationship you've lost (TANGENT: Because the relationship really is its own entity, isn't it? Maybe that's the best way to think about it, rather than harping on losing the other
person. At least, provided that you want that person to remain in your life to some extent), Djinn. Let me be clear: I don't mean that in a condescending or sneering way whatsoever; I'm fascinated by others' parallel experiences in this sort of thing, and your comment there in particular makes me wonder.
It's hardly a logical set of feelings I'm having, after all, and neither is it as if I suddenly lack an identity. It is a much more... metaphysical sensation? Ha, Strago, be more pretentious than talking about the metaphysics of your damn breakup.
I dare me.
But, really, there's a question of "Who in the world knows me better than she does?" The answer is a resounding "Nobody," and I'm quite sure the same Q&A applies reciprocally as well. So when that knowledge is suddenly gone -- well, if not
gone, then at least suddenly changing at a rate so fast that neither one of us will likely be able to keep up, as in my experience a breakup of this nature leads to nothing so much as a person's rapid and extremely probing self-examination -- how exactly can I know anything else about any other damn person? And who knows me well enough that my existence is... I don't know. Confirmed? Justified? Corroborated?
As little sense as any of this makes, I've been thinking about it a lot since Friday night. The huge shift in self-understanding isn't about not having things of my own. It isn't as simple or tangible, even, as being unbalanced by all of the places/things/times/feelings I can't help but associate with her (and likely won't be able to help but associate with her for a long time coming). It's, uh... well, it's big and confused and overly complicated. Much like any emotion that's at all worth having.
Heh, like any of that makes any sense.
As far as relationships coming and going... yes, I've no doubt that they do. Nature of the beast. I'm just... struggling a bit to really let
her go, to get back to the topic of my earlier tangent. To lose her from my life entirely would seem to be such an awful waste of... something. Besides, we both still love each other, to whatever extent that's possible.
Ryogo:
Thanks for the kind words. I might take you up on that offer of a ranting subject.
