November 27–December 22, 2003 — It’s all I’ve got

I don’t see much of E         anymore.

I guess I’ve been living through lists instead. Finishing the tasks I’ve assigned to myself and crossing them off is pretty easy. It’s just a matter of finding the job on the list I’m dreading the least at a particular moment and working on it until something else on the same list seems a bit more appealing. The danger is that I’m not all that interested in making lists anymore. It’s not that I’m not motivated; I’m always looking for things to do. It’s just that sometimes I’d like not to have to think about it. I’d like to know I could just go over to her house and watch a movie and sleep until the sun wakes us up.

Now it’s the week before Christmas. Amy is in Goderich and Jeff goes to play music most days, so I don’t see them very often. E         is very busy lately, so we don’t talk much anymore.

I’ve spent most of this week alone. Some days I’ve left the house to go Christmas shopping. Others I’ve stayed home and watched for the man who delivers parcels. I ordered more books than I could afford and they have been coming one at a time because the online bookstore I use sends orders in pieces instead of together. I think the mailman hates me. I waved while picking up another parcel he’d thrown onto the front porch without ringing the doorbell. He waved back, but I saw malice in his eyes. I expect books to begin disappearing soon.

But at least I have new books. They make me feel a bit less lonely when I flip through them for the first time, but I don’t feel like reading. So my new books sit and look nice on my bookshelf.

And it’s another Friday night.

Six months ago, this wouldn’t have been so bad. I was used to being alone. It’s different now. I’m still clinging to recent memories of the happiness that came with not feeling alone. Now loneliness comes along with bits of regret and longing. I want it to be three months ago. I want things to be better again.

By the end of the last weekend before Christmas, I was lonelier and more desperate for human contact than I’d been in a long time. I couldn’t do it anymore, for a lot of reasons. So on the next Monday, the day before I left for Ottawa, I ended whatever was left for me to end with E        .

I barely slept that night. And I’d barely slept the night before, having spent hours and hours pacing back and forth from the living room to the kitchen, knowing it was over and pleading with a girl from Maine on the phone, hoping she’d tell me otherwise.

Desperate for sleep I couldn’t find, I sat awake for the five hours between Ottawa and Toronto. I looked out the bus window and into the darkness. I knew I’d made a mistake. I told myself I hadn’t had a choice.