Natalie Weiss

Some things you just can’t predict. You can hope certain things will happen. You can hope certain things won’t. You can build an emergency fund in case they do, or at least tell yourself that you will, once day-to-day life becomes less emergent.

But it doesn’t matter. Things will still come that blow your world up. That remind you that no matter how intensely you hold on, no matter how desperately you want control, life just doesn’t work that way. Life just doesn’t honor wishes.

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Ah, 2020.

I guess we are nearing the end of this story, huh?

My story, at least. For now. 

I have no idea how long this pandemic is going to last.

If 2015 hadn’t happened, if 2017 hadn’t happened, if the end of 2018 hadn’t happened, 2020 would surely take the cake on most difficult year of my life.

It starts normal enough. My girlfriend and I do the Whole30 in January. We had been drinking too much beer and eating too much take-out. An overhaul of the diet seems like a good thing. For both of us individually. For both of us together.

We had passed our one year mark back in December, but, in my head and heart at least, something has changed. That future I once envisioned – the spot I wanted to ask her to marry me, the wedding, the life together – is not quite as clear.

There are many reasons for this, and it is the cumulative weight of all of them that begins the divide. If any one of those reasons had come at us in and of itself, I know we could’ve worked through it. But life just doesn’t honor wishes.

We do the Whole30 together, and while I was hoping the experience would bring us closer together, it just doesn’t seem to work.

In February, things happen quickly, in my life and in hers. Things that divide us more.

I am frustrated.

I feel like she is pulling away. I guess I am too. Once the divide starts, it is so hard to stop it.

Mid-February, I tell her we need to take a break. I have things I have to sort out. So does she.

I thought I would feel better once I finally got those words out: We need to take a break. But oh my god. I did not know a person could hurt this much.

The other times in my life when I have grieved – like when my grandma died or when I was no longer welcome at home – the grief was inevitable. It had to happen. There was no bringing my grandma back. There was no taking back the words I had spoken that Christmas.

But this is different. I do not have to hurt like this. I could call my girlfriend up. Or text her. Or stop at her house. I could say, “I made a mistake. I don’t want to take a break.”

But I know she is hurt. By the break and by the circumstances that led us here. And I do a god-awful job at respecting her space during the break. I text her a few times. I show up at her house once. I am just broken. I feel so broken.

I kind of realize, and I kind of don’t, but I never really processed what had happened with my family. I had my girlfriend to get me through that time, but I think I actually used her to distract me. I just never processed what had happened.

The break, then, forces me to process two things, two terrible things, at once: the break-up that might be coming and the change in my family relationships.  

When I initiated the break, I had said we should reevaluate at the end of February. Take some time to ourselves. Figure out what we wanted.

I am not ready for a break-up. She has been such a constant in my life, in this new life, and I am not sure I can make it without her.

She thinks about just ending it then, but we have history, and we’ve worked well together in the past, and we can work through this.

We get back together at the beginning of March.

We don’t let the break become our break-up.

Things are better for a little bit. We have both acknowledged some of our flaws. We have both acknowledged some of the things that were taking their toll on our relationship. So we are going to try to do better. We are going to try to work on it.

But life just doesn’t honor wishes.

The coronavirus pandemic is in full swing by mid-March. There are talks of lockdowns and quarantines. I am scared that we will lockdown like other countries have – with curfews, or tape on our doors to make sure we don’t leave.

It is silly to think about that now, to think that the same Americans who refuse to wear masks would ever comply with a curfew or a complete lockdown, to think that the President who also refuses to wear a mask or acknowledge any fault would completely lock us down.

But back in March, anything seemed possible.

My girlfriend is very concerned. She is taking the pandemic very seriously. She also still works for the grocery store, and grocery stores are nearly overrun during this time. She is working overtime – every day she is there, every week for many weeks to come. It takes forever and a day for her company to compensate her at all for the risk she puts herself at, for the extra effort she puts in, for the extra stress she is under. No one tells her to take a break – not during her work day and not in the middle of all of this. No one tells her that it is ok to take care of herself.

She is exhausted. I know this. But I am selfish. I want her time too. I expect her attention. I expect to be a source of rest for her, not more of a drag. But I am anxious. I am depressed. No one knows how to react to the events unfolding around us, no one can predict what is to come next. I don’t want to go through this alone. I want my girlfriend to be with me. I want my girlfriend to want to be with me.

As things progress, and even as they settle, I still know inside of me that I can’t do this anymore. A break-up is probably inevitable. The pandemic may have sped up its occurrence, but it is coming. There are too many things deepening our divide. There are too many times I questioned if I wanted to be with her for, well, forever.

I know the break-up is coming. While I don’t expect her to initiate it, I don’t know if I can initiate it either.

We have a serious conversation that starts to get close to it one night, and I lay with her on her bed and just sob. She holds me, and she says, “Nothing bad is happening.”

I don’t want to break up with her, even though I know it is for the best. I am looking for something else, and I can’t force her into the box I have in my head. It is not fair to me, no, but it is really not fair to her.

I know in part I just don’t want to be alone. I am so scared of feeling the same way that I felt when we took our break, of hurting that bad again. I have unintentionally pushed away friends, or just lost contact, because I spent every day with my girlfriend. And I don’t know if I’ll get those friends back. I don’t know if they’ll be at an arm’s length when I tell them I’m breaking up with my girlfriend, since I was at an arm’s length with them while I was in the relationship.

I listen to a podcast that drops this bit of wisdom on me: Tell yourself a better lie (Marisa Peer, Episode 949, The School of Greatness with Lewis Howes). We lie to ourselves all the time. Let’s not tell ourselves how awful we are, how awful our situation is. Let’s tell ourselves how amazing we are, how amazing our situation is. Even if it’s not true.

I write a list of all of these awful things I am feeling – I feel like I’m dying. I am so alone. She must be so mad, sad, hurt, etc. I am weak.  – and I try to flip those statements to something better. I am rebirthing closer to who I want to be. I have friends who care deeply for me, even if we aren’t together. Her pain is not mine to carry. I am the strongest person I know. Writing these statements is the thing that finally gives me the strength, finally solidifies in my mind that I can do this. We can break up, and it will be ok. It will be for the best.

My girlfriend is a good person, and I feel so privileged that my first relationship, if it was not going to work out, has been with her.

I break up with her near the beginning of May. It turns out to be mostly mutual. She says she had been thinking about it too. It is difficult, but I don’t hurt the same way as when we took the break.

In fact, the first month or so, I am quite optimistic. I have things I am looking forward too, and I have found a rhythm in my days with reading, writing, and running, and there are talks of the lockdown easing up soon.

Returning to work sounds like a good thing.

It sounds like social interaction. It sounds like laughter and good conversation and distraction.

But I am unaware. All of the things I am optimistic for…they are not going to happen. And when I start realizing this, when the lockdown eases but the pandemic does not, a pandemic of loneliness commences.