Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

This is The Parlour, a place for intimate conversation, a real-time archive, a shared diary passed between a rotating cast of queer characters every week in an attempt to capture a kaleidoscopic view of what it’s like to be a queer person right here, right now.

Earlier this week, my now ex and I sat down on our blue velvet couch and joined our Zoom session with our couples therapist. She joined two minutes late and brightly asked how things were going, presumably expecting we’d done last week’s homework, that things were on the upswing. Instead, we delivered the news that we’d broken up, that our six years together were over, that we were slowly uncoupling. She was surprised to hear. I was, too.

Our six years together spanned three apartments. We moved farther and farther south in Brooklyn as the years passed, making sure to maintain proximity to our favorite restaurants and all our friends. We spent a sweaty summer evening at the Brooklyn courthouse filing for domestic partnership along the way. We talked about marriage, about children, as though they were guaranteed. I had emailed a possible wedding venue to get an estimate. We had a future. We had a plan.

We broke up on a Wednesday at 10 p.m. Any other Wednesday, and we might have been watching a show, taking a bath together, or sitting at our desks in the office we shared, furiously typing away at our respective crafts (both of us writers, but in very different ways). This Wednesday was like most others, except it lasted a lot longer than every other Wednesday. Breakup Wednesday lasted an eternity. We were up until three, processing, grieving, holding hands. In true queer fashion, we’ve done so much of that since.

I know that breaking up is famously hard. That this grief, which right now feels insurmountable, will eventually pass and make room for the “better things” everyone claims are coming. It helps that we’re sad together. It helps that we’re not ending on terrible terms. It helps that I have people in my corner — friends, family, loved ones — who have shown me so much love and care in the past few days since. I feel so held by my community. But at the same time, I’m losing a good chunk of it. I’ll never get a red envelope for Lunar New Year from my ex’s mom again, nor will I see their family friends at Christmas. I’m sure I’ll run into their friends at gay things in the city, but it’ll be awkward at best.

It’s not lost on me that I’m older than my mom was when she had me. I’m 29, young by Brooklyn standards, ancient elsewhere. My grandmother apparently started menopause in her mid-thirties, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about that clock. I know there are so many ways to have children, and that I might not even want children when the time comes. I met the first baby in the friend group today. She’s my college roommate’s daughter. She’s three-months-old and perfect. She gurgles and giggles and has tiny baby toes. I want that for myself someday.

My ex’s reasons for ending the relationship all make sense. We’ve always been like oil and water, and I struggled to love them the way they wanted to be loved. I wish I had listened more, I wish that I could have given them what they needed. In the aftermath of our breakup, I feel like we’re seeing each other clearly for the first time. I just wish I could have seen them sooner.