Checking back in

I left you last weekend on a sad note, so I should let you know that I'm fine. I think I was fine by that night and definitely by Monday morning. When I saw him on Tuesday--we met up briefly so I could retrieve something I'd left at his place (I'd been prepared to let it go but he offered it to me)--he looked upset, which pained me. He barely looked up from his phone as he handed me the bag, so I didn't stop; I just turned around and went down into the Metro. I felt bad that he felt bad, but I was also out of feelings at that point. By Wednesday night, especially after I relayed the whole saga to a friend before the ballet started, I felt no need to revisit it at all. This friend had shared my cautious high hopes at the start of the relationship, but understood my reasons for being able to let go at the end of it.

At some point, the joy in freedom and more time may turn into an enhanced loneliness, but so far it's all freedom and time. I was thinking during the workweek how less stressful it was to not have to worry about having to leave to meet someone before I finished something. Is that a good freedom--the freedom to stay at work as late as I need to? Having just started a new job, I need that flexibility right now (and I don't end up staying late often). Should I meet someone, I'll manage a way to do both. I know realize the extent to which that last relationship, though mutually convenient in ways, was largely on his terms.

I needed this weekend to myself, too. I don't know where it went. I did briefly think, as I was watching the St. Patrick's Day parade yesterday, that M. would have enjoyed it, and that I might have enjoyed it more had he been there, but the thought didn't pain me; I just shrugged it off. One of the things I felt profoundly during the relationship--particularly when I was happy and hopeful--was how little changed. Sunsets were equally beautiful, not more so, when you enjoyed them with someone you cared about. Movies and plays were just as good or bad. Some things were more enjoyable--for example, it was fun to wander into Katsucon at National Harbor a couple of weekends ago and marvel at the cosplay--but this would have been so with any other companion. And, as Dar Williams would say, I have many great companions.