Taking Flirting for a Test Drive

Today I realized that it's been nearly a year since I've last seen my former fiance. I have not been on one single date in that time, though I made the sincere New Year's resolution to go on one meaningless date this year. I've not really met anyone interesting in that time, and so, I've not been really tempted to date.
Well, tonight at work, a verrrrrry nice looking gentleman came in with his grandmother (we're keeping in mind, I hope, that I work evenings at a retirement home.) He came in, and I felt a little awed by his nice-looking-ness. He asked how I was doing, and I said, "I'm doing well, thanks." The lady passing through behind him said, "You always say that," and blushing, I replied, "Well, if there was one thing I learned in high school, it was how to be grammatically correct." The lady then shook her head and walked away, and the gentleman stood there, laughing. I said, "How are you?" To which he replied, "I'm well..." We awkwardly chuckled over this, and as always, I decided to take matters a step too far. "I guess you could be doing good." He looked down at me, confused, and I added, "You know, like for humanity." He shook his head slowly, the joke lost on him, and I resolved to never again try and use grammar for flirting purposes.
He then left. No information was exchanged.
I'd like to think that maybe I seduced him with my awkwardness. Just a little.

Hidden treasures in Kindergarten

I just love Kindergarten sometimes. You can never anticipate what will happen next.
Today, I was directing a reading group and noticed that one of the girls would not sit down. I asked her to sit. She attempted (painfully) but then sprung back up.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said.
But by then, I had figured out that a whole lot of "not nothing" was going on. Her butt was sticking out about a mile.
"What do you have in your pants?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said, starting to blush a little.
"Are you going to show me or am I going to have to look?" I asked, unsure of what I would do if she didn't voluntarily show me the contraband.
So, she reached down inside her underware, and I had a brief seize of panic when I considered that maybe it was a colostomy bag or something, but then, she pulled out a watch. Then a plastic horse. Then a miniature Barbie. She had a whole collection of McDonald's toys jammed in there.
I just looked at her, shocked and unsure of what even to say.
"I'll put these in my backpack," she said, breaking the silence.
I nodded, swallowed, and replied, "I think that would be a good idea..."

Jane Eyre and me

So, I've been reading a modern retelling of my favorite book, Jane Eyre. The book I'm currently working on is called The Flight of Gemma Hardy, and it's very nearly a mirror of the Jane Eyre story, but set in 1950s England and 1960s Scotland. I've really loved living through Jane Eyre again, but in a new, and sometimes surprising, way.
Tonight at work, I was feeling incredibly down. It was 8:00, and I felt like I was no where near being ready to head home. My desk was piled with things that my boss had left for me to finish, and I just felt overwhelmed. When I'm overwhelmed, I think about all the millions of things in my life I'd like to change, and then, insult adds to injury, and I find that I can completely depress myself in a matter of seconds.
Well, as I was bemoaning my current state, the story of Jane/Gemma came to mind, and I felt something that seemed a little bit like hope.
In most every other book I read, I find that people get what they want. It may take a while, but generally, they are given those happy endings that the rest of us long for.
Jane Eyre gives us a different perspective on this. Yes, at the end, she does get her Mr. Rochester, but the ending is bittersweet. Neither character is untouched by the passage of time. Really horrible things have happened to both of them. Answers don't come easily.
So, that is where I found hope tonight.
I think that, if I were Jane Eyre, I would have just woken up from my sickness in the home of the clergyman and his sisters (or in Gemma's case, the postman and his sister). I would be muddling through life without the person I once loved, trying to find beauty and meaning on my own.
I don't believe that I'll ever have S back, and truthfully, after a few epiphanies recently, I don't want S back (which is a huge thing for me to say), but I do think that I'm living in a valuable moment right now.
Life is rough. I'm scraping by on a tiny salary, working countless hours every day, feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, but Jane Eyre caused me to remember, "This is not what the rest of my life will look like."
Things can be better. Things will get better.
Right now, I'm just learning and healing and growing. And growth seems to always be accompanied by pain. But pain seems often to lead to something greater.
Here's hoping for greater things!

A Tale of Kindergarten

So, I currently am working in a Kindergarten, and the kids' fascination and overall exuberance for life just has me laughing and shaking my head everyday.
This past week in class, I was talking to another teacher, and one of the girls in the room where I was working approached me, tugged on my skirts and said, "Miss, did you know that when I came out of my Mama's tummy, I didn't got no hair?"
I ignored her, because I was in the middle of a conversation with an adult, and I felt that she needed to see that she couldn't interrupt an ongoing conversation.
Maybe an hour later, I was working with her on a project, and she said again, "Miss, did you know that when I came out of my Mama's tummy, I didn't got--"
"You didn't have any hair?" I asked.
She looked up at her, shock written on her face. And she said, "Was you at the hospital?"
"No," I said, grinning.
"Then how you know?"
"You just told me," I replied, bemused.
"I did?" she asked, looking shocked.
Oh my. How I love Kindergarteners. They keep life interesting.

Valentine's Day...that wretched time of the year...

I like to tell myself that I'm a capable, educated woman. I don't shatter into tears when faced with opposition. I don't crumble to the ground. I will, as Gloria Gaynor sang, survive.
But then, Valentine's Day comes creeping along, and I find that my resolve shatters.
I had kept my mind off of S and our failed future very well. I had moved on. I filled my life with work and education classes and friends and Friday art nights and French assigments and conversation groups. I had felt very, very good about my moving forward.
And then, like I said, Valentine's Day.
I find that now, with that pernicious holiday only hours away, all I can think about is him. And if he's spending the holiday with someone. And if I'm completely behind schedule not having gone of my one meaningless date for the year....
Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Bleh. I've termed the day Gal-entine's Day, and I'm headed out to dinner and a movie with my girl friends.
Still, the thoughts persist, and I pray with everything inside me that I won't resort to cyber stalking. Sadly, the night is still young.

Indianapolis

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but I live in an apartment in downtown Indianapolis, which, in light of current events, is a pretty fantastic thing.
Yesterday's Super Bowl brought the city together in a way I haven't seen since the Colts themselves won the Super Bowl a few years back (look at me talking about sports! Better stop here; I don't know much beyond what I've already written.)
In any case, yesterday, I was out running just before the big game began. I ran to Monument Circle, although I didn't run around the Circle as I usually do--the crowd was far too thick, and on my jog back, I found $20 on the ground. There was literally no one around. I pocketed the money, continued my jog back to my apartment, and found myself grinning larger than I have in a very long time.
The money had something to do with the overall feeling of well being, but truthfully, for all of my comments about loving Europe and wishing I were back there, I have to say that I adore this city. I'd taken Indianapolis for granted, but February 2012 in this city reminded me of why I'm so proud to be a Hoosier.

An Ideal

In the past year, things have changed drastiacally, and I find myself constantly asking myself the question, "What do you want to do with your life?"
Yesterday at church, the pastor was preaching on 1 Timothy 3--specifically the qualifications of elders--and he encouraged young boys to see if there was a certain burning in their hearts, a feeling that maybe they should head toward ministry. He said that, at 10, he had felt a strong desire to go into pastoring, and therefore, had spent his life heading down that course.
I paused in my notetaking, and I tried to think of anything I'd felt a burning passion toward.
I work in a Kindergarten at present, and I'm taking evening classes to become certified to teach Secondary English. I love Kindergarten, but it's not my passion. High School English is much closer to a passion (certainly, it's easier to feel passionate about Chaucer and Dante than it is to feel passionate about the letter "M").
There are only two things that burn in my heart as passions: traveling (and good luck making a career out of this) and writing (good luck making a career out of that either!)
But then, it hit me. And now, naturally, I have the rest of my life figured out.
I want to be a teacher in a foreign country who moonlights as a travel writer.
In other words, when I have my certificate in 2013, I want to move to one of those overseas boarding schools (Dakar? Santiago, DR? Vienna?), and then, in my free time (let's hope I have some), I'll write accounts of everything I do and learn and experience while overseas.
The idea seems brilliant to me.
Of course, let's examine my current position.
I'm sitting behind a desk at my night job, preparing to answer calls that rarely come in. I'm reading Lost on Planet China and eating leftover Lunchables.
About anything sounds good right now. Still, I think I can say in a clear-headed way that I want to moonlight as a travel writer.
Let's see how this goes...

Wanderlust Continued....

Tonight, I've been looking through pictures I took while I lived in Europe. I continued to feel this overwhelming need to travel. Since Monday, I've dreamt of traveling. I've written about traveling. I find myself constantly talking about where I'll go on the next trip.
I cleaned out the library's travel memoir section, and I find that I cannot stand to stop reading.
It isn't quite the trip I would have hoped for, but in those few moments I spend inside the pages, I do feel that I'm somewhere special and unique.
And yet, the feeling doesn't last after I close the book.
It's.time.to.go.

Speaking French Continued and Wanderlust Hits

So, I thought my French speaking was challenged by the Alliance Francaise meeting a few weeks ago, and as it turns out, the French speaking challenge continues.
Last Tuesday, I walked into work and a fourth grade teacher approached me and said, "I hear you speak French."
I nodded.
"We got a new kid in the fourth grade," she said. "She's from the Ivory Coast."
I felt my heart begin to race. Could it be that, finally, there was someone in my day-to-day life who spoke French?
"And the bad news is, she speaks no English...and neither does her family."
Now, I felt bad for the little girl and even worse for her family who, as it turns out, work as maids in a hotel downtown in the heart of the city, and yet still, I couldn't quite believe the good fortune.
We parted ways that morning, and I urged her to come find me if she needed me. The first day went well. We exchanged pleasantries and talked about small, insignificant things. But then, on the second day of school, I went up to the girl's classroom to help her make her lunch choice, and she wasn't there. The school called up her sister's school. The sister had made it to school and assured us that her sister had been at the busstop when she left. I finally phoned the mother, palms sweaty and hands shaking, partially wondering how clear my French would be and partially worrying about the girl. I told the girl's mother that she hadn't gone to school, and the mother rushed out of work, drove the streets of the city until she found her daughter, wandering around in the snow.
The girl had begun to doubt that she was in the right place, she told us later, and she went home to check where her busstop was. Meanwhile, the bus passed, and the girl coudn't find her house. Her mother was already at work, and not knowing English, she didn't know how to communicate to anyone around her. But thankfully, disaster averted. The principal picked her up at the family's apartment and brought her to school. Thankfully, things have gone more smoothly since. I struggled to explain what a tostada was this morning (do you know what a tortilla is? No. How about a wrap? No. Well, I guess you could say it's like a crunchy pizza...), I translated a letter for the parents when they came in confused over something they'd received in the mail, and I translated a very awkward conversation a few days ago (the principal told her, after 4 days, that she should no longer wear the same clothes, because in America, we just don't do that), but for the most part things have improved. I do realize, however, that I have a long way to go in my French speaking, and hearby, reaffirm my resolution to work harder on my oral and written French skills.
And on a similar but different note, lately, I have felt an intense need to head out of the States.
A Norwegian friend of mine who currently lives in Paris wrote me a while ago and offered me her apartment for the next several months while she does an internship in America. I considered the offer, but at that point, my fiance had not yet left Paris for Pretoria, so I didn't want to be anywhere near him with so much healing left to do. I told her no, but vaguely regretted the decision.
Then, Friday, I began reading a book called Honeymoon with my Brother. It's the story of a man who is dumped by his fiancee (sound familiar?!), but he had already paid for their honeymoon, she along with his brother, he embarks on the planned Costa Rican vacation. The brothers end up having so much fun that they return home, sell their homes and possessions and head overseas for the next two years, and in the process, visit 53 countries.
And in addition to all of this, my cousin left yesterday for Togo, West Africa. She'll be working there for the next three months. She urged me to come visit, but ah life... Jobs, bills, responsibilities... I can't see any way to go.
Still, with all of this travel and talk of travel, I want so badly to head back oversea.
Prague is a must-see. I've heard people rave about how it's the perfect collision of Western and Eastern Europe. I heard amazing things about the spired buildings and interesting post-Communist atmosphere.
I also have wanted to see Capetown since my ex-fiance extolled its virtues when we debated where to honeymoon.
And then, there's the typical Ireland, Scotland, England trip I've meant to take for a while. My former roommate in Paris is living in London now and assured me a place to stay. And though I see 3 days' worth of Ireland, I'd love to see more.
So much to see. So little money.
Still, I've decided to save $200 a month toward an international vacation. After budgeting the cost of a plane ticket and the cost of a 9-day adventure, I think I could feasibly take said trip in the summer of 2013.
I already feel excited at the prospect.
But for now, I have to save and continue to be wiser with money.

Speaking French again

Time continues to pass, and little by little, I find myself thinking of S less and less. But there are still moments when he comes into my head, when I see someone who resembles him or hear a song that evokes memories of him. This past week, he's been with me almost constantly. I'm not entirely sure why, but I find myself dreaming of him, and then, during those conscious day-time hours, I try to force myself to forget.
I've been running around frantically, trying to keep my mind occupied. I find that I still cannot quite bear the thought of him.
This week, in an effort to have no free time, I decided to give the Alliance Française a try. I had worked my day job, then worked 4 hours at my night job, and then, met this French conversation group at a restaurant on Thursday.  I felt hesitant, unsure of what to think of the upcoming French speaking experience. French is a language that filled my life during the S years. I used to read hours and hours to him, and he would correct my pronounciation. We read through Little Women, through the book of Psalms, and on occasion, Pierre Belmar's real French crime books.
I have lost S, but I prefer not to lose my grasp of the language, so this January, I (you guessed it!) made the resolution to meet with the Alliance Française occasionally and read 4 books in French.
So, Thursday...
I arrived, and to my surprise, met the most interesting people.
There was H, a French-Italian man who had lived in France nearly his entire life, rubbed shoulders with Mitt Romney while Romney was working in France, befriended the great French actor, Gérard Dépardieu, when he was making a scene in a hotel in France, enraged that no one had recognized him.
There was E, a French girl who met her American husband while they both worked in Vietnam, and then, moved with him to the States, and currently works at an International School.
There were the Russians with their perfect American accents and interesting French phrases.
I was so relieved to be speaking French again, to see that I hadn't entirely lost my grasp of the language.
At the end of the night, one of the Russians, appropriately named Sasha, came to sit by me, and he asked all sorts of questions about my life and past and French schooling. He was so comfortable to talk to. We're the same age, in the same general stage of life. I enjoyed him. He was engaging, fun. When I got up to leave, he stood too, and he opened the contacts on his phone and had pressed "Add Contact." I watched all this with a sense of alarm, and I said a quick goodbye (too loudly, too clipped), and I left. I told my friends about the experience later, and they berated me. As they often do, one said, "You'll have to date again sometime. Why not now?"
Why not now?
I still have a strange sense that, in dating someone else, I'd be cheating on S. My heart is still strangely tied to his.
But then, I wonder if this would be different if I met someone I actually really, truly cared about. Someone who was genuinely an option.
I've told myself he has to be at least 27, has to be American (not to be racist, but the international route burned me), he has to be a Christian, and has to have had at least one girlfriend (I will not be the dating experiment.)
I hate thinking about dating again. It isn't comfortable.
But one day, I'll have to do it. I hope I'll meet someone someday that will make me want to date again.

Lettering

This year, I also made the resolution to do a better job of sending cards and letters. Ideally, I'll send them out for birthdays and anniversaries and baby births, but on a more practical (and frankly, a more attainable) level, I just want to keep up with sending out Thank you cards after holidays and to keep up writing to the "pen pals" I already have.
My current pen pal is my roommate from college. She is now living in a tiny studio apartment in Houston, doing her residency at Baylor. I love getting her letters, as it opens up my eyes to a side of life I don't consider often. On the sobering side, her first letter of this year read, "My world last month consisted of pediatric oncology. It's not exactly a 'lift your spirits' type of rotation when you go from room to room telling families that their formally perfect child has conver and needs surgery." On the brighter side, she wrote, "Only exciting news for me was the 'pseudo date' I went on earlier this week," and she went on to detail the expectation-free evening she spent with a fellow resident. Ahhh, the life. (Have I mentioned that's another one of my New Year's resolutions? One meaningless date this year. I'm pretty excited to try that out. I've always been a relationship girl. Never an "expectation free" kind of girl. I'm excited about trying something new...) So, in any case, I'm blessed and happy to have her sending me letters once a month.
So, in addition to writing to her, I'm going to start a one-sided pen palship with someone else. This Sri Lankan woman I met in France. She was, in fact, one of my French students. When I was in the Paris area, I tutored her every Monday, and it's been hard to not see her anymore. When I left, I told her I would return in the winter after the wedding, and we would continue the classes.
After the cancelled wedding, I had written and written to her, but she had never responded. However, just a week ago, I got a Christmas card in the mail from her telling me that she had moved and wondered when I was returning to Paris. "When we start class?" she wrote in her butchered English. So, today, after writing my Pen Pal 1, I wrote to Pen Pal 2. I carefully explained that S no longer wanted to marry, and I explained that I wasn't returning but that I would love to keep in contact through letters. She struggles to write in French or English, so I'm not sure how frequent her letters will be, but starting today, I will try to keep the pipes of communication open.
And now, having written, addressed, and stamped two letters, I sit back in my chair and breathe a sigh of relief.
I'm in contact with people.
I'm less of a hermit.
I'm even a little cosmopolitain with my out-ot-town friends.
So, you know what? That's something. There you go, 2011.
Watch me wrestle my way back into real life.

Starting Fresh

Here it is, after 1:00 in the morning. We are now three days (although, technically 4) into the New Year. I’ve had an out-of-town friend staying with me for the past week, so I’ve been a bit lax about my self-betterment. However, after dropping her off at the airport this afternoon, I rushed home to start knocking items off my To Do list (work and school start up again in 5 days…I need to get down to business!)

In the midst of washing all the clothes in my overflowing laundry basket, I sat down to begin work in one area of this year’s self-betterment: journaling.

This year, one of my resolutions is to journal at least three times a week. I have found that doing this is bittersweet. Just today, I went through my journals from the past few years in Europe. At the start of 2009, I was in Mosbach, Germany, making friends, eating weiner snitzel, feeling that nothing could ever go wrong with life. At the start of 2010, my parents were over visiting in France, and my dad unexpectedly suffered a stroke. S and I welcomed in the New Year sipping cups of soup in the waiting room of St. Anne’s Hospital in Paris while we read each other excerpts of Isaac Babel stories. And last year, S and I had flown to the US together, and he met everyone in my family for the first time. We had made the New Year’s resolution to get married in 2011.

And now, here it is, 2012, and I sat shivering in my cold apartment, because another resolution I have is to spend less money this year. The handwriting inside my journal looked cramped and messy as a result of my spasming hand (the thermostat told me the apartment was 60°), and I sat in my winter coat and boots and told myself this is probably what Dickens did once in a while. Money, as we know, doesn’t grow on trees.

I’ve been told that people who journal are generally less depressed—that they are in touch with their feelings and are better able to process their hurts.

I would love this to be true of me.

So, there I went. I wrote and wrote and processed and processed.

And here’s my conclusion on this third day (technically forth) of January.

I’m starting fresh.

And not only am I starting fresh, 2012 will not disappoint me the way 2011 did. I refuse to let it.

I’m starting out this year single, so chances are, I won’t have to cancel another wedding this year.

Not only that, I can work toward a whole host of things this year: sending articles off for publication, running two half-marathons, enjoying that one meaningless date.

It’s going to be a good year.

I won’t settle for anything less.

So, here’s to starting fresh!

Filling in that Pocket of Silence and A Burst of Inspiration

And for better or for worse, time passes.

The story of the girl who moved to France, who met and fell in love with a South African man in Paris, who became engaged one July day, and who felt her world fall apart after she returned to the States now seems like ancient history. It seems almost as if it were someone else’s story—familiar, but distant.

Nearly six months have passed since S called off the wedding.

And what happened in between July and January?

Well, days plodded by, and somehow, I existed. I moved to an apartment in the city. I got a new job working in a Kindergarten. I began taking evening and weekend classes. I made new friends. I began running competitively. And I wrote. Constantly. Because somehow, I felt that, if I could put the words I felt onto paper, the pain would start to go away. And it did. Little by little.

And I learned another tactic that has served me well these past few months.

About a month after S cancelled the wedding, I traveled to Michigan with my cousin, my would-have-been-Maid-of-Honor. She had rented the honeymoon cabin at Little Eden Camp in Onekama, and the two of us squeezed our bags into the tiny cabin and kayaked and hiked and played tennis for a week. We also met up with a friend of hers for lunch, and this friend was telling a story over our sandwiches and lemonade and offhandedly commented, “Rejection is so much worse than death.” This girl knew only the skeleton of my story and did not make the statement maliciously, but I felt my eyes fill with tears, and when her hand flew over her mouth in recognition, I mumbled and sputtered and tried to force the moment to pass. Later, I received a letter from her.

“It seems that, for now, I cannot detach myself from our conversation at lunch this Saturday. My heart hurts for you,” she wrote. She went on to tell me her story of loss, and at the end of her letter, wrote down a few things that she learned while swimming through sorrow. One was so helpful that I include it here: “This point is so difficult for me that I hesitate to even include it,” she wrote. “But live in each moment, in the present. In your pain, live in it, do not try to escape it. And in your pain, do not go back to relive what was done. There may come a time for that, but for now, try to let it go.”

I felt the beginning of something that felt like healing when I read that. For so long, I had walked around with a metaphorical stiff neck, not allowing myself to look too far in one direction or the other. I had kept my mind busy, not allowing it to wander to memories or plans. Thinking of how wonderful the past had been was unbearable. Conceiving a future without S was unthinkable. And I felt perpetually ill at ease for living in a tunnel like that.

But after receiving her letter, I relaxed. It was such a comfort to have the affirmation that I wasn’t engaging in some kind of act that would prevent healing. I needed to hear from someone who had treaded further along that things would be okay.

And things aren’t quite okay yet, but somehow, these months have passed, and my life has moved forward.

S, on the other hand, has not fared so well. He contacted me in late October, and as it turns out, has returned to South Africa after some thirteen years in France. Not long after he called off the wedding, he lost his position with the engineering company in France and was sent back to South Africa. He wrote a very cheerless update and signed off, “Cheers.” For a while, I plotted and schemed how to secretly send him money, but in the end, the plotting came to nothing. I am no longer linked to him. I am no longer responsible for him.

But (and by way of transition), I am responsible for myself, which is precisely why I am writing here again after several months of silent inactivity.

Tonight was a slow night at the retirement home where I work during the evenings, so I found myself jotting down my list of 2012 Resolutions on a Post-It note. One Post-It stretched into two, two into four, and soon, I had 25 resolutions written down. Some are pretty plebian (save more money, spend less money), some are resolutions I make every year (read 45 books), and some are going to be tough for me (submit five articles for publication, go on one meaningless date).

But suddenly, I sat back, looked at my yellow Post-Its with the ink scrawled across them, and I felt a flicker of excitement. If I actually kept up with these goals, I could really see some huge changes in my life.

So, I’ve decided that I am going record this year. For the first time in a long time (let’s face it, my resolutions rarely come about), I’m going to crack down on myself, get slightly uncomfortable doing things that are “good for me but not fun”, and I’m going to keep a Resolution Log.
Crazy? Probably. Self-Absorbed? Most likely.
And yet, why  not?

I may still be feeling sub-par about my life on December 2012, but if that is the case, it won’t be because I didn't try to change.

I’m tired of wallowing.
I’m ready for a change of scenery.

Now, on to the New Year…

Immobile

Somehow, the days and hours continue to pass, but I find that I lose gaps of time altogether. I’ll find myself sitting immobile at a green light or unable to recall what happened the previous day. I feel as though I’m living inside a bubble of some kind. I hear voices around me and see people around me. The words they say all make sense, but I can’t quite string them together to form any kind of meaning.

Nothing seems real except this pain. It feels ever present, like a dull ache, most of the time. For minutes, sometimes even an hour, I’ll think that maybe I’m healing. But then, the strangest things—the mention of a bridal shower, a headband with a peacock feather, the song Banana Pancakes— bring with them a memory and leave me incapacitated again.

There’s another feeling growing inside me, and this one embarrasses and shocks me. I think of S., and I feel angry. I’ve never felt truly angry at him before. But I do now. I feel angry at him for promising me he loved me. I feel angry at him for allowing me to love him for so long. I feel angry at him cutting off three years of a relationship with an email. I feel angry that I didn’t have the opportunity to ask questions and engage in a discussion when he decided our life together was over. Most of all, I feel angry at him for giving up on me.

Occasionally, I think of calling him. I imagine what I would say and how I would say it. I would stay calm and keep my voice even. I would ask him why, and I would tell him his behavior was cowardly and didn’t I deserve better?

But this kind of thinking is unhealthy, because I won’t call. If I did call, nothing would change. I would not be content with any answer he would give me, and the only thing I want—reconciliation—is now impossible. In his last message, he told me that he would call the US Embassy in Paris and cancel the interview he had set up to receive his fiancé visa. As soon as he made that call, whenever that was, our window of opportunity closed. We had worked up to and filled out papers to obtain that visa for months. It would take nearly a year to start over, and I don’t even know if legally we could start over. We’re kaput.

I now somehow have to move forward. I have to figure out what’s next for me. The life I had planned for myself is dead. There is no France, and there is no S.

So, what do I do and where do I go now?

Just.keep.breathing.

I like the feeling of being under water. I feel weightless and surrounded. The noises are dulled, and for once, I don’t mind the silence. I haven’t been much good at being silent lately. When I drive in the car, I turn the radio down, but I scream until my voice is hoarse. I’ve never done this before. I’ve never needed to. Under the water, I feel like no one can say anything that will hurt me. I won’t be able to hear it. Strangely, it’s the only time I feel safe.

Two full days have now passed since we cancelled the wedding. I’ve received the final email that came in response to my “Could you at least tell me why?”

“It came to a point where I couldn’t say that I wanted to go on with this,” he wrote. “Knowing what was waiting at the end of the tunnel didn’t carry me anymore.”

He told me just to throw out whatever I had left of his. But I bagged up most of his things and brought them to a charity shop. As I left, I noticed how many people looked actually grieved to be dropping things off. It occurred to me that these kinds of places must hold a lot of grief. I couldn’t, however, donate the sweater he proposed in or the sweater he wore for our engagement photos. Those I stuffed into a box, along with his wedding band, and took to the post office. I couldn’t keep those things anymore. I couldn’t spend any more time sitting on my floor, wearing his clothes and slipping his wedding band on and off my thumb.

I also sent another package. That one, I filled with the things people have given me as wedding gifts. I’m not talking about impersonal things like silverware, but about the apron with Mrs. C embroidered across the front and the letter C wall hanging. Those are the kind of things that are extra difficult to see. And those I mailed to the girl who would have been my sister-in-law, the girl who is married to his brother.

I’m nearly rid of everything. I’ve deleted his phone number, his email address, and his text messages. I no longer carry a photo of him in my wallet or have his photo on my cell phone. I thought I would print out all his emails before deleting them, but after printing off 61 pages and being only two months into our three-year relationship, I decided to stop. There were too many pages, too much love. I thought it would be painful to read the messages that we had written when we still couldn’t quite grasp that our feelings were mutual, but when I saw all those words I hadn’t read for years, I felt calmed somehow. “I still sometimes can’t believe that all this between us is real,” he’d written.  It helps me to think that, at some point, he did love me—that maybe in some strange way he might still—but for reasons I’ll never quite comprehend, things are over.

All of his pictures are gone from my parent’s house. When I got there yesterday, the family photo from Christmas was gone. The collage of photos from Paris was gone. The photo on the fridge from the Dominican Republic was gone. The photos have all been replaced with other photos of my brothers and their families. I’ve taken the pictures off my walls too, but I’ve left the frames up, empty. It somehow seems symbolic and necessary to do this. I’m not ready to replace anything yet.

Speaking of replacements, the dating comments have already started. “I know you’re not ready yet, but when you are, I know a really nice 29-year-old man who…” When the comments come, I smile politely, nod, but feel sickened at the thought of ever loving anyone else. “That’s farther than my long-term goals reach for the moment,” I want to say. “Right now, I’m just planning to stop all the clocks, sit in my wedding gown, and cry until a little boy called Pip comes into my life.”

“You’ll find someone,” people say.

“You’ve got everything going for you,” they tell me.

“Anyone would want to be with you.”

But I sob so hard that the muscles in my abdomen hurt, and I try to ignore that ever-present physical pain in my chest, and I mouth the words, “Yes, but he didn’t want me.”

Day 1

My fiancé called off the wedding yesterday, and as I write this, I’m wearing the sweater he wore when he proposed, trying to sniff his smell out of its sleeves.

It’s strange to me how like grief this feels. We were an international couple—he in France, me in the United States—so our interactions consisted mostly of Skype and emails. Now, there’s nothing. I’ll never see him, never cross paths with him, never know anything of him again. He, in some ways, has died. People tell me I’m fortunate to be able to go through my life, knowing we’ll never run into one another again. I don’t feel anything fortunate about the situation.

I do notice, however, that everyone else’s love swells and stretches to cover his lack of it. I’m receiving eternal hugs from parents and siblings. Everyone wants to do something to ease the hurt. The barista at Starbucks offered me my caramel macchiato free after I sobbed my way through the drive-through. “You shouldn’t have to pay if your day is already this bad,” she said. My sister-in-law took me to a restaurant and I sat there, across from her, slurping down glass after glass of Coke, but struggling to swallow solid food. I perpetually feel like I have the flu. My throat is closed.

Returning things and cancelling things has been the greatest trouble. I called to cancel the bridesmaid dresses, but the manufacturer had already started the sewing, so I simply received an “I’ll see what we can do.” I drove over and tried my hand at begging, but I realized quickly how pathetic I looked—my hair crazy, my new chic glasses smeared with mascara and steamed with tears. I looked past the sales women to see girls trying on their wedding gowns with young men I imagine must be their fiancés. Everyone looked at me in horror. Shops like this should be happy places. “I once looked just as happy as you do,” I wanted to say. But I didn’t, not because I had the self-control, but because I had a sister-in-law with me who ushered me out before I could make a scene.  The photographer, who also happens to be my aunt, cancelled with no financial penalty, but offered the stunned silence that “The wedding is off” inevitably brings. The silence was followed by apologies. I didn’t know what to say to them. What should one say to, “I’m sorry”? As for the rings, they couldn’t be returned. After being turned away from the jewelry store—and, to my dismay, the woman put the two rings back in a fancy bag with wrapping, which painfully mirrored the day when we’d bought the rings six months earlier—I decided to go down a different route and try selling them for scrap metal. The man at the store was nice enough, but when he put the magnifying glass up to his eye and clinked away at the diamond with something that looked like an ice pick, I felt myself growing ill. He came back beside me, told me he would melt the rings down into something new. He offered me only $122 for the engagement ring and the two wedding bands. I felt my hand clamp down over the rings, and I told him “No, thank you” and left. I knew I’d rather keep them in a box forever than sell them to be melted into nothing. Maybe it’s crazy, but the rings have represented so much happiness for me. “It’s too soon,” the man at the shop said. “I think you should sit and think about what you want to do before you do anything rash.”

I know it’s soon to be cancelling and driving from place to place, but the wedding is off. There was no phone call or visit. Just an email sitting in my inbox when I checked my messages at 8 that morning. “Dear Katie,” it read, “I’ve been waiting for a good moment to write this, but what timing could possibly be good for such news?” He wrote on in his overly-formal, learned English that there really are no explanations, that his love has cooled, and that I should go on to live a very happy life.

It took me hours to write up a “Thank you for being honest response” and assuring him I would do my best to get his things back to him. After years of dating, whirlwind trips through Amsterdam, Bruges, Gent, and Paris, this is how it ends.

And today, I woke up, having forgotten the breakup while I slept, but feeling the missing ring on my finger. I walked to the bathroom, splashed water on my face, and told my reflection that today would be better. But I promptly collapsed on the floor and cried until the tears dried up. It’s 8 in the morning. Twenty four hours since everything fell apart. It’s going to be another long day.