Sometimes I feel okay. Sometimes even optimistic that this breakup will actually be good for me. It’s nice not to feel chained to Victoria by my heart…to feel free to go wherever I want and do whatever I want.

But mostly I feel completely out of my element. I am so, so, so used to being in a serious, loving relationship that I am made anxious when I realize that there isn’t someone who loves me intensely. To remember that no one is waiting for me in bed, no one will text me to say goodnight or goodmorning, no one to think of me fondly, to watch shows with, to kiss. Even just re-reading what I just wrote makes me feel like vomiting. I feel lost without someone to love. It makes me want to scratch the skin off my forearms and it makes the back of my throat ache. I focus so much love and attention and energy of the people I date that now that there is suddenly no one to focus on i feel like it’s all just bouncing around inside of me…ricocheting around in my body and making me feel crazy and anxious and ill and panicked. I literally cannot even re-read this post to make sure this sounds ok or is making any sense at all. I can’t bear to see the words that are attempting to describe how this feels on this computer screen because it makes it so concrete and real.

that when I want to spend time with you and/or make love you get super sleepy and always go to bed early (last night you went to bed at 11:30) but when you go out and get wasted with your friends you are always out late. Even when you have to work in the mornings, which is often your reasoning for going to sleep early instead of staying up to have sex with me.

I suppose the simplest answer is that you’d rather miss sleep to get wasted with friends (while I am home alone, sick) than do it with your girlfriend.

I feel sick. I start thinking too much about your demeanor towards me lately and I start to feel like I might throw up. I start picking myself apart. I stand naked in front of the mirror after hot showers and look too close, stare too hard; over analyzing every winkle, every bump, every character flaw in an attempt to figure out just what it is about me that has suddenly stopped holding your interest. I pick at almost nonexistent blemishes until my skin bleeds, fret over my protruding belly, worry about the perkiness of my breasts, overthink every possible character flaw. I notice that I am finally beginning to show cellulite in my upper thighs. Wonder if it’s because I’m boring to you; that I am suddenly not as appealing as going out every night drinking. That even if I were able and wanted to go out with you that maybe you would feel as though I was holding you back from some mystical superfunawesomeadventuretime. The people I am traveling with have both been talking to their significant others every single night, sometimes even skyping with them to see their faces. You have been so busy that I haven’t even been able to talk to you on the phone every other day, you send me the bare minimum of texts, and even when I do talk you to you seem distracted…as if being on the phone with me is something holding you back from whatever you’ve planned to do afterwards. You have been out late almost every night, whether or not you work early the next day; out later drinking with friends than you are willing to stay up to make love to me when I am home.

You’ve been out almost every night I have been away, and when you stay home you always have people over. You constantly surround yourself with friends who always (even when I am home) seem so much more interesting to you than I am, so I suppose I am not entirely surprised that you are not lonely for me. You don’t even miss sleeping with me: “i sleep better alone” you now tell me. At the beginning I couldn’t even convince you to stay in your own bed for one night without you yearning for me and now you cannot wait for me to leave - the emptiness beside you not a constant reminder of how much you miss me, but rather an opportunity for you to stretch your limbs and sleep on the softer side of the bed.

I wonder why suddenly you want to move out, when at first it was you almost refusing to ever go home that was the reason for us basically living together since we started. Is it because I am messy? That you are sick of stepping over piles of my clothing to get into bed? Sick of doing the dishes you once went out of your way to do just to be sweet to me? I would gladly give away all my clothes and eat out for every meal just to keep you with me. I would sell all of my things, become a minimalist, keep only necessities if it meant keeping you. After almost a year of living together you moving out seems like a step back. Most people date for a few months and then move in with each other. We are slowly moving backwards. Ever since you decided you didn’t want to move with me i’ve been able to feel you slowly pulling away from me. Even before you told me I could tell - like a gentle tugging on my heartstrings.

I want to hold tight to you as hard as I can, but fear smothering you, of driving you even further away from me. I make myself sick wondering what is it about me that you once adored that suddenly is driving you away. I am so terrified, even of you knowing all of my thoughts. That if you read this you will not soften and fret and tell me that it isn’t true, that you’re so sorry that you’ve been making it seem like you do not miss me and are almost completely uninterested in being in any sort of contact with me while I’m away. I am afraid most of all that telling you these things will make you realize that they are true. That you do not miss me, and no longer love me and that you would always rather go out and party than have anything to do with me.

So instead I say nothing, but write it here instead, because I need to get it out of myself somehow.

I am ravenous. I constantly eat and yet never quite manage to feel full. Or rather…I feel full but not satiated. As if there is some essential nutrient, some protein I am not getting in my diet. I feel as though I could not take another bite and yet…and yet I am always looking for my next meal, always feeling as though I need to eat more. It is just the same way I feel about you - no matter how many texts you send or calls we make wherein you speak to me of what you are doing, how you’re out every night, filling every second of every day with the company of others, no matter how much I “talk” to you…I still crave more. We speak in short sentences…both not entirely listening to the other, relating mundane facts of daily actions but never telling stories with any actual meat or merit. We speak until we run out of things to say, and yet I always want more, check my phone every five, ten minutes for another text, email, anything that might make me think you could possibly be actually missing me, but they never come.

Or if they do come they are heavy with obligation. They, like the way you tell me you miss me with little conviction behind your words, seem more and more every day as things you feel you ought to be saying rather than things you say because you must. Because they are true and they stew inside you until the pressure of keeping them within you is such that you cannot bear it and must let it out. Even your declarations of love have become less from the heart and more from habit.

It’s not as though i am saying that you do not love me, or that you do not miss me…but rather that words which are merely said and not backed up by actions hold less weight. That what we do often communicates more about the reality of our feelings than what we say because we feel we ought to. I would rather go weeks without hearing you tell me you love me and have you say it to me once with emotion and conviction, than hear words without feeling fall from your lips every day.