one

I am two weeks into this new place, this new life. It was not as hard as I thought it'd be, to pick up and move, to go it alone. Every day, I make this space more and more mine, more and more a home. I am streamlining, simplifying, discarding those things that aren't important. I thought I would be lonely here but it hasn't been. I thought I was leaving love behind but it's followed me here; it's simply changed shape.

A few weeks ago, we began the task of dividing up our things. We started with the furniture, each of us saying what we wanted or didn't want. The only thing I really wanted were the books, hundreds of them crammed onto six different cases. These were, are, more important to me than the furniture, the pots and pans. We sat in the living room surrounded by movies and cds, holding each one up and saying what about this? The whole time I kept thinking, I can't believe we're doing this. After seven years together, seven years of collecting and building and merging, it took only a couple of hours to divide and become separate again.

And now I'm here, freedom and fear and loneliness and excitement all mixed into one. There are no rules here unless I decide to make them. I am alone but not lonely, living this life for one. Cooking for one, shopping for one, doing laundry for one. I was already used to sleeping alone but now I do it without the comfort of a familiar body in the next room. There is no one to depend on, no one to do the things that need to be done. There is only me but surprisingly, this is enough. For now, this one is enough.