Winds of Change

~tetris

(I can hear a sad whistling tune through the breeze, punctuated by a melancholic electric guitar backdrop....)

Greed

Right until Christmas, everything was moving forward. My partner and I were planning the next stage of our lives, and my career was finally stabilizing to the point that I could wind down a little in the evenings. Kids were talked about.

On January the 7th, we got a letter from our landlord. He was kicking us out. Not just us, but the entire house. His daughter wanted the property and since his wife had died the year before, she had now become a part-owner of the property.

At that point I saw a few future's die. The logical thing to do would be to buy a property, but that's something that people with time and money do and we suddenly didn't have any of those things. Sure, we could go through the ordeal of moving again, and planning again, and putting our plans on hold for another year or two whilst we uplifted the home we built and painted and tried again somewhere else, but my heart just couldn't do it for a few reasons:

Homesickness and Resentment

1. I missed my family in home country. I didn't see them over christmas, and with my parent's ailing health, my missing brother, and my sister whose mental health I began to question, I realised that they need me around.

2. I love my girlfriend with all my heart. She is a sweet person. She would be a fantastic and loving mother. She supports me in all I do unquestionably, and asks for little in return except a few tender moments in the evenings. But, when it comes to a deep conversation with her, I realise I have more in common with others than I do with her. We're not intellectually equal, and there's a language barrier. That's not to say that we won't always be not in sync, and she's made great strides in the years we've been together, but I began to realise that some things I just couldn't share with her because she wouldn't appreciate them.

Love is Enough?

Half of learning a language is knowing the culture, and there were huge gaps in mine for hers, and huge gaps in hers for mine. I thought that these wouldn't matter if two people just loved each other as we clearly did, and that we would conquer all our difference with time.

Part of me still believes this, but I know it would be a slow process of 10-20 years until we were mentally in sync, and by then I may have fully retreated into my own head to the point that I would resent her.

I could also see a future where having a child with her would be enough of a common interest that would bond us together, but I've seen enough relationships where throwing a child into the mix is not the solution, and feelings of guilt and resentment can brew.

Slow Disentanglement

It's been a rough few months. Exercise, long baths, TV and Cinema have helped. Alcohol makes it worse. I miss her still so much. It's hard not to cry over a lost future with her. We might have been really happy.

Is it possible to feel extremely happy and forlorn at the same time? That's how it felt inside the relationship. Outside of the relationship I just feel like an empty hollow husk of man who couldn't appreciate something good.

We still see each other, as she comes to collect her stuff or we dismantle furniture together. She's been living with her parents, but will be moving into an apartment nearby to them. I'm helping her move, and giving her my internet contract. She's helping me deregister from the system here, so that I can move back to my home country.

What now

I've quit my job, quit my utility bills, and packing up. I'll be living with my mother for a few months until I can recover and find a new job.

Part of me thinks that it isn't over. That this is all just a weird dream, and that I will come home from work and she'll be there listening to her podcasts and making pasta as I embrace her from behind and forget about the worries of the day. Maybe there's a parallel version of myself where this reality still holds true. I think about my other selves a lot.

Another part of me thinks that it might be on pause. Who knows, maybe I will feel just as lonely back home as I did with her, and then only then will I realise that the problems were in my mind the whole time. Maybe she'll take me back in a few years, after we both try a string of failed relationships and I come to my senses and realise she's the best I'll ever have.

And a final part of me thinks that we'll both just move on, and never see each other again and that will be that. I can live with that if I know that she finds someone to make her happy and can make her wishes come true. She deserves all the kindness in the world, and I don't think I will ever stop loving her.