Tonight I'm exhausted and sad. The sadness is more final than any sadness I have ever felt, and the exhaustion is like a haze over my heart. I now understand that my lover - not Ex, but my lover, the partner who brought me such joy and wounded me so deeply over the last 12 years... I now understand for the first time that this man is truly gone. The man I call Ex is not him. There are shreds of my partner inside him, shreds of our relationship and our shared experiences, but they are nothing more than shreds, arranged in such a way that they no longer resemble the man I loved.

I feel tears coming, but they are stuck somewhere behind my eyes, making my eyes feel glassy and my throat tight.

I never lost loved-ones as Flora did, but I imagine what I'm feeling right now is akin to what she must have felt as she buried her daughters and husband. On Day 1 I cried non-stop. The tears came like fire, burning my eyes and my skin, stuffing up my sinuses, thickening the phlegm in my throat. These new tears - these tears that are building but not quite surfacing at 3:26 AM on the last day of the year 2010 - these new tears are not hot, simply heavy. No longer am I am mourning the loss of a relationship, but the loss of a man. I miss him. I wish he were here to comfort me, to stare into my eyes and tell me they are shaped like two beautiful almonds.

The old Ex was vein but humble. His ambition was matched only by his kindness and devotion. He had grown up feeling unloved, and once we truly connected after a period of false starts, there was nothing we wouldn't do for each other, no pain from which we wouldn't try to protect each other. Sometimes my protectiveness backfired. In an effort to shield him from pain, sometimes I ended up hurting him and myself. But he was my greatest ally. He made me feel safe and loved. And now he is gone.

Perhaps Ex and I look at each other now and both of us see a stranger. Perhaps we can become friends someday - maybe sooner than I think. But first I must make peace with the passing of his former self. I will mourn it as I would an actual, physical death, because this is what it feels like. Ex has my partner's eyes, his body, and pieces of his spirit. But he's harder than the man I loved, less kind to himself and to others, and, most of all, fearful. Of growing old. Of failing. Of unhappiness. I fear these things too, have feared them in the past, but I remember the man who once listened to my fears and smiled childishly and sweetly as he assured me everything would be okay. Ex is not that man. I will treasure my memories of the man I loved, and I will miss him.