On roads and growing

The Philosopher and I broke up last night. It was kinda long in the making, with things being bad for quite some time this fall, but it just got to the point where we wanted different things, and couldn't give the other what they wanted. I wanted space, he wanted more emotional availability. I'm not the type of person who likes to admit defeat, but the distance wasn't doable in the way we would've liked it to be. We still both deeply care for one another, and would've obviously wished that things could have progressed differently, but things don't happen in this world as they would in an ideal. I worried a lot about the future, since I don't want to leave Japan, and while he offered to try to find a graduate position in Tokyo, this life isn't easy. This place is different. It makes you different, and if you don't want that, or don't want to come here for your own sake, it's not going to work. For him to give up his entire life and move across the globe to a country he knows practically nothing about and with a language he knows literally nothing of, would have been too much weight on my shoulders. I didn't want that.

The Philosopher used to say that there were like two versions of me - one cuddly, fuzzy Stockholm version, and one harder, cooler Tokyo version. I guess that might be true, although to me they're only different facets of the same personality. The thing is, it felt a little like I was choosing between two lives this spring, when deciding to leave. On one hand, I could've stayed with the Philosopher, most likely moved in together in a rather swift motion, and had a stable, good life like an average Swedish couple, possibly moving abroad to some country for a year or two before settling. We'd have a cat, a nicely furnished place, and eventually go the very Swedish route of having a kid or two and then working 9-5, picking up the kids from daycare and having squabbles over who would do the dishes or cook dinner or whatever. It would've been a good life. On the other hand, there was Tokyo. What I tried to do was to mesh these two, but I should've known it wasn't for the long run. Yes, had this been only one year and I would've wanted to return to Sweden, then yes - it could've worked. But what with feeling so good here, I had kinda already made my choice and just wasn't willing to accept that it probably meant moving on from something that was a really great thing for me. I loved the Philosopher. I still do, but this is where I am in my life right now. I don't want it to be in any different way. I want to live by myself in this tiny apartment, in a country far from everything I've ever known. I chose the adventure because I wanted the adventure. I feel bad for thinking that way, but in the end, things are what they are.

Throughout the Skype conversation with the Philosopher I felt kinda numb and mostly just sat there twiddling with my headphone chords. "Why is this room so cold?" I kept thinking. It was like it was chilling me to the bone. Mom tried Skype calling me mid-conversation with him, so when we'd hung up I called mom and dad straight away. Still kinda in a daze, they didn't notice anything was up at first and gave me a Skype tour of their new house, which was adorable. Dad made a running commentary while walking around with the computer, and mom opened all the doors enthusiastically and pointed to things of interest. I miss them so much. Then they went "So how's the Philosopher? What were you guys talking about?" and I had to awkwardly go "Uh, we broke up. That's what we did."

They were a little confused by my apparent lack of emotion about it, which was mostly just due to feeling very apart from the whole thing, but I'd talked to mom about things not being good about a month ago, so she kinda knew what was up. I'm not one to share, but they caught me at such a perfect time where I could just tell them all the facts of what was going on, and then just be done with it. It doesn't really need to be mentioned anymore, and that feels pretty good. What I want right now is to just get some distance from all of it to regroup.

One thing that stuck with me was that he implored me to not think of our entire relationship in the same light as these past few months, and of course I won't. We had a wonderful relationship. It just didn't... fuck, I don't know. It didn't work. I wish it would've, but it didn't.