One sunny morning in December of 2018, I sat up in bed and with 7 excruciating words, I blew up my entire life. “I think we need to break up.”
I remember the look on Kevin’s face so vividly that it still aches and nags if I ruminate long enough, like a familiar anchor in my chest. We sobbed for hours on end, we held each other, my heart sank into my gut and my gut sank into the center of the earth. At the same time, that moment—that relationship, that ending—remains a bittersweet marker of love. I left Kevin for myself. I longed for adventure and security, nights on the town and the option for children, a laid-back partner and a magazine-worthy wedding to kick off a marriage. And no matter how cozy a life we built in our little apartment, that was not our path to take. He swore up and down that, as much as he loved kids, he never wanted to have his own, and most adamantly, that he never wanted to get married.
Today, I live alone in a delightful studio off of Sunset Blvd. and Kevin is getting ready for his wedding. But this isn’t a story of regret or resentment. This is a story of how we are often making the right choices even if they’re for reasons we don’t yet know exist. This remains a story of love.
Early on, our bond was cemented by finding each other when we were both still new to DC. He was heartsick and homesick living with his mom and step-dad in northern Virginia and I had just barely survived my first year of teaching. Up to that point, my DC dating history included a one-night stand with a rich guy who was wearing a c**k ring, a butcher who brought his knives to our date, and a neighbor I met on Tinder who took me to Dave and Busters before buying me Plan B.
In a sea of freaks and lobbyists, there was Kevin — covered in tattoos and showing up to our first date at Red Rocks too hungover to eat his share of the pizza. He reminded me of home, took me to punk shows, and we binged five straight seasons of Game of Thrones during a blizzard, perpetually buzzed off shower beers and spiked apple cider. I knew I loved him about six weeks in but waited until just the right time to tell him: 4 months later, 5 margaritas deep, at 2am, on the corner of 14th St and Florida Ave in front of a 7-Eleven. He was funny, affable, silly, and kind — an artist, a talented musician and comic alike, and he made friends everywhere we went.
We officially moved in together in June of 2016 after a year of dating and lovingly shared the sweetest 500 sq. foot apartment for the next 30 months. An ornate fireplace, a bench his mom bought us from Home Goods, and a dog and a cat demanding our attention at all times. We made late-night nachos and pancakes, ate pizza on the roof, and always kissed each other good night. We spent a lot of that fall protesting and spent inauguration day on the front-line barricades face to face with riot gear. His sister would visit from Chicago and crash on our floor, we spent Thanksgiving in Richmond and Christmas in Lorton. I adored his family. And he once jumped on a strange stage, with a stranger’s guitar, and sang a song he wrote about me. I can’t remember all of the lyrics but, “melt on me like pizza cheese” was in there. (Was our entire relationship pizza-based? MAYBE!!!)
It was perfect and it wasn’t. We were perfect and we weren’t.
I’ve spent most of my life in charge because I’ve had to — an only child of two addicts doesn’t exactly make for the most laid-back, well-regulated adult. He’d spent much of his life following the fun and being doted on. I was bossy and he was combative. I was deeply insecure and he wasn’t the greatest communicator. I needed order and he needed to go to band practice.
So, we fought.
I once left him in my car parked on the street because he was so drunk he wouldn’t get out and I’d had the same experience with my mom a decade earlier. I remember feeling so betrayed by this moment that I couldn’t stop shaking. I hadn’t yet been to therapy. I hadn’t even begun the immense undertaking that is unpacking my mom’s disease and how that will forever impact me and my relationships. Ultimately, Kevin and I were both a mess in our own ways, resentment built, and as time went on, I fantasized about the possibility of a new relationship instead of coming to the realization that what I really needed was a fucking therapist and what he needed was someone with more compatible baggage.
One of the most obvious gifts of this time period though is that I did indeed start seeing a (THE world’s best) therapist in Fall 2018. Between turning 30 that August and starting to see Jody, I could feel the looming breakup deep in my bones and I knew I’d have to be the one to break both our hearts. I just didn’t know the real reason why until now.
I left selfishly and naively. I dove into a new relationship too quickly still weighed down by grief and yearning. I had only been in therapy for a few months and had years (ok a lifetime) of work ahead of me. That’s a nightmare for another day/essay/book, but right now, I’m looking out my window at nine palm trees, thousands of pink flowers, and one yellow butterfly. I dug myself out of pits time and time again to be here. I moved West on my own to be here. And Kevin found his person. They reconnected back home in Hawaii only a few months after our breakup and she eventually moved to the mainland for him. She seems lovely and funny and makes charming pottery. They are getting married and I am getting braver.
This is where heartbreak eventually leads, you’re just never allowed to see past the bend until it’s time. Six years later and we text each other on our birthdays and cheer each other on from afar. It’s all how it’s supposed to be.
In many ways, this is a love letter to my time with Kevin, to my late 20s, to old homes—but, in a broader sense, this is a love letter to this life we get to live.
It’s the kind that says, “I am so, so happy that our journeys are unfolding as they should be. I am so comforted to know that you landed in a safe harbor, that you found your person. I am grateful that we got to share a few years of this one wild and precious ride. Here’s to it all.”
Xoxo.
