The short version is that we still love each other tons; neither one of us is sure this is the right decision; the break-up was entirely non-acrimonious; we've seen this coming for a while and have been frantically trying to dodge it, to no avail. The only real issue is different long-term life goals; irreconcilable difference, as they say, and as far as we can figure out. Of course we're going to try to continue to be best of friends. And I suppose I'm still hoping that a break will let one or the other of us figure a way out of this bind.
The long version took not just all of last night but quite a few exhuasting conversations beforehand, and just isn't anything I want to go into again. I need to go teach now; I hope the students will forgive me my tiredness and propensity for bursting into tears.
10:10 a.m. The weather has shifted. The smothering heat of the last few weeks has given way to crisper, cooler weather that tastes of September. I'm glad -- it was getting hard to breathe -- but at the same time, it makes me miss New England. The price of loving many places is that eventually, you miss them all. It's been over ten years since I lived in Connecticut, but I can remember with aching clarity the massed trees on the hillsides, reflecting their colors into the still waters of the reservoir. It's such a shame that so many trees in so many places never experience that season of glory, that wild exuberance of crimson and gold. I suppose they don't know what they're missing.
falling leaf spirals
down, spinning wildly, free,
to the cold hard ground
Is it possible to be homesick for everywhere at once?
I am, of course, staying in Utah for the year, at least. I have a teaching contract; I have a lease. And truthfully, teaching is one of the very few things I can still get excited about right now. I enjoyed teaching my class this morning; we discussed cyberculture, luddites, the real dangers of technology. Then we learned how to start pulling meaning out of a poem or a song. It was good, though most of them are so far behind in their papers that I'm worried. Everything's due next Tuesday; I don't want to have to flunk anyone. Still, I still look forward to these classes.
I haven't been able to bring myself to read a new book in days. I've been re-reading Dragonsinger compulsively. I don't know why. I can recite the damn book at this point.