Screencap by Malabooboo Not my account or my friends :)

On Facebook, the sound of an instant-message pop-up. I look down at the chat window and see my sister's name and picture.

SIS: I will totally go visit the Florida family with you if we can work it out. (I'm reading your blog a lot.) [Smiley face.]

ME: Aw, thank you! I mean it, too! [about visiting family in Florida]
Things are not great here right now, unfortunately...

SIS: I'm sorry.

ME: That's okay... I'm oddly numb to it all.

SIS: Self-defense mechanism - the body can only take so much
When is he moving out?

ME: Turns out I'm moving.

SIS: I imagine it will improve the situation when you're not on top of each other.
Really? [You're moving?]

ME: Hopefully in a few days.

SIS: Did you find a good place?
That's got to be a bit disruptive - preparing yourself to stay and then go and then stay...

ME: [It's a good place.] It's cheap, right down the block... just needs some work to make it move-in ready. I started packing yesterday. I packed through New Year's, actually.

SIS: I'm glad. You'll get to start somewhere new - a place that will begin as YOURS.

ME: YES! But as you could see from the blog, yours and my conversation the other day really got me thinking... [See "Day 12: Rage"]

SIS: It's a pretty awesome feeling[, to start over in your own space.]
Yeah - [that conversation] actually stirred an interesting conversation between [my boyfriend] and me as well.

ME: I just can't wrap my head around the fact that it's over just because the spark died and he doesn't want to get it back...
I hope [your conversation with your boyfriend] went well. Planning for the future?

SIS: There has to be more going on. I just can't imagine someone wanting to throw away a relationship just because the sex isn't often enough when everything else is really good.

ME: Well, he defines the problem as "passion" in general... not enough sexual passion, not enough passion for the things he loves doing (dance, NYC nightlife, etc.).

SIS: Hmm.

ME: I agree, there must be much more, but I just can't get him to articulate what those things are and to convince me they're as serious as he says. I feel like he needs to convince me if I'm ever going to move on!

SIS: Don't people grow out of that stuff eventually (the nightlife, I mean)?
[But what you're saying is] so true, [even though] I don't think I've ever heard a rationale that satisfied me in a break-up, ever.
That person is just no longer equipped to comfort you in a way that's meaningful.

ME: True, very true. Although keep in mind, this is basically my first breakup.
I guess I keep hoping I deserve more after 12 years... more of an effort [on his part] to comfort and convince [me].

SIS: You do deserve more, but he most likely can't give it to you.
I found your Day 13 entry very powerful.

ME: That was a really powerful moment for me, actually... that's pretty cool that it translated. I wonder if someone else who's not my sister would find it powerful.

SIS: Mourning the loss of a lover like a death - it leaves the same sense of lack of closure that a loved one's death would bring, only the person is still THERE. But similar to someone who died, they're incapable of providing any sort of closure.

ME: That's the killer piece of it: the person is still physically alive.

SIS: Yep, that makes it a helluva lot more excruciating.

ME: Really, I can't tell if I want to beat his head in with a baseball bat or what.
(That's a flash of anger talking.)

SIS: Well you wouldn't be the first to ever think that.

ME: 12 years... I just can't believe I'm being told to give that up on the hunch that something better might be out there.

SIS: Or you want to shake him and tell him to cut the crap and be who he was.

ME: YES! The man who was more loveable, because I feel like a saint for loving even parts of him the way he is now...

SIS: There has to be more going on with him.

ME: Even though I have no choice.
He's the man I loved most in my life, and he's a fucking asshole.

SIS: Indeed.

ME: I'm incredibly articulate, aren't I?

SIS: That's why I reserve swearing - it has a special place in language.
But having been the dumper from time to time, there can be kind of a "gestalt" feeling that you just don't want to be with the person anymore. You care about them and love them but for one reason or another you just don't see yourself with them anymore.
Maybe that's what he's feeling.
It's hard to articulate and very unsatisfying for the other person to make sense of.

ME: Especially after 12 years.
[Really, what you're saying] might be one of the most sensible thing anyone has said to me so far. But I just can't take it. Twelve years and you'd think there might be more incentive for the dumper to examine his feelings before he acts on them

SIS: Or try to work it out or go to a counselor or something.
That's mainly what I told [my boyfriend] - that if the physical intimacy ever gets to a very unsatisfying point he has to TELL ME so we can at least try to work it out.

ME: Not to be pessimistic (I'm really not trying to be), but i said the same thing to [Ex] awhile ago.

SIS: I don't think you're being particularly pessimistic - just trying to make sense of a nasty situation.

ME: I swear I don't mean anything by it. I know you and [your boyfriend] communicate differently than we did.

SIS: Really, it's not a problem. [My boyfriend and I can] certainly have our own gaps; I'm not naive enough to think that any couple is perfect. I still can't understand how [my boyfriend] is SO SURE that he wants to marry me. I try to be honest about my lack of certainty for these types of reasons.

ME: Well, he loves you. But this is the fucked up thing. I really thought if two people loved each other and managed to SUSTAIN that love for a significant period of time, then it would always sort of be there to draw on, a kind of "love reservoir" - but it's not.

SIS: I guess that's why people say it takes a lot of god damn work. I need to stop watching romantic comedies. I think they ruined me.

ME: It DOES take work, and he wants none of it, and I'd like to gouge his eyes out as a sign of my appreciation.
Woo, I'm on an anger roll.
Sorry.
Have I worn you out yet?

SIS: Nah.
You have every right to be angry - I'm glad you're letting yourself BE angry.
Unless both people happen to be on the precisely same page (which is good and rare), breakups are never clean. They are just varying degrees of awful.

ME: It's hard with him in the apartment, I'll tell you that. It's a kind of emotional whiplash. One minute i hate him, the next minute I want to make love with him, the next i feel completely fine and free of him, then on back to anger, etc.

SIS: I'll be happy for you when he's not there - lord knows you'll be thinking about him enough. And maybe in six months you'll be able to not want to gouge his eyes out and then in a year you can produce [another play] together.
(Rough estimates of course.)
The moral being that time and distance are the only things that work. And even they don't do the job entirely.

ME: I'd just love to hit the fast-forward button and make the whole time-and-distance thing happen more quickly.

SIS: You'd make a ton of money if you could figure that out.

ME: And shit, I cannot IMAGINE starting something like this again. I loved having a partner, but to start all over from scratch? The thought just makes me want to force my head into a toilet bowl.

SIS: It's a whole lot of work. It will certainly renew your appreciation for being alone.
[For one thing,] there's no need to constantly explain yourself to someone or tell them about your day.
[For another thing,] what you experience is for you only and if you choose to share it with someone else (a friend, a future lover, whomever), that's totally up to you.

ME: Or channel it into a play, probably.

SIS: Even better.

ME: Although I don't want to be like Woody Allen's character in Annie Hall and write some terrible play about my own breakup.

SIS: I have you to thank for being well educated in Woody Allen.

ME: Gee, I feel like I'm regressing. Right now I really miss being a kid... watching Woody Allen movies in my room with you or my friends and having the whole "single thing" worked out (if only for lack of other experience).

SIS: Well, your world is being disrupted in a myriad ways. You are understandably drawing from a time in your life that was NOT spent with [Ex].

ME: Yes, and i have to reach back to age 18 to get to pre-[Ex] time, and HE's the one who wanted a life partner and to sleep in the same bed and all the crap that i resisted. Thanks [Ex].
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRG!
(Electronic, IM scream.)

SIS: Yes, I get that. You use all-caps responsibly.

ME: I really do love you. I've become aware of how much I love my family and friends in ways I haven't been aware of for years... 12 of them, to be precise.

SIS: Aw, thanks.

ME: I really do mean it. I know I'm supposed to be "the older brother" and have my shit together, but right now I feel like an emotional shmorgishborg.

SIS: One of the most difficult parts of a break up is feeling SO alone. Knowing you have people you love and  who love you back takes a bit of the edge off.
Well, [the "older brother" thing is] just baloney.

ME: I'm glad you think so.

SIS: You put enough pressure on yourself without all of that sibling order stuff. Age difference aside, now we're just two quasi-adults trying to piece together our lives.

ME: I like that - "quasi-adults." I feel very "quasi" right now. Undefined. Between things.
I think I'm going to have to cut and paste this conversation into the blog.

SIS: Oh boy.

ME: I'll change or omit all the names, of course.

SIS: Go ahead, it's fine. Now I can read about us.

ME: Thank you. I love you.

SIS: Me too.

ME: Send [your boyfriend] my love. He's a good guy.

I click the "x" at the top-right corner of the window to close it. I log off.