I've never actually ended a relationship before, so this is all new. A genuinely new set of emotions. How often do we get that?

The newness is that I didn't implode and drag everything into a miserable train wreck for weeks or months. I started a difficult conversation that a year ago I couldn't have started, and 4 years ago I couldn't even have participated in. Time will tell if I made the right decision, but I made a decision and acted on it, thinking it was right at the time, and that's a lot of what I ask from myself. (This was still messy, partly because breakups just suck, but mostly because I'm still me, and sometimes it takes me a while to come to hard truths and stop dancing around or telling stories.)

I'm unfocused. My housemate is out of town on business, and the house feels empty, even though my lady friend wasn't necessarily here that often. There's sadness weaving through everything, twinges and pangs at the sudden empty space: an extra towel, a toothbrush, a smell on the pillow. I'm not changing the pillowcases.

It's a weird un-focus, though. Why does this make sense to me? What makes it the right thing to end a calm relationship with a cute, smart, quirky woman? I don't know, really. I don't know the specific reasons for most things I do. My life is determined by "Oh, this feels like the right choice", and I can rationalize it, but the feeling is what drives the action. The challenge has been to accept the feeling-decisions that I don't want.

There's something awful and magical--and utterly new to me--in feeling good and bad at the same time, but above all feeling...clean, somehow. Strong? Myself. Like there's hope for me, even though I forget it sometimes.