moving on, or, going to court and what you can find there

I've been told that it takes half the time you were in a relationship to fully recover from it once it comes crashing to an end (depending, I suppose, on which side you're on, on whether you are the one leaving or the one left). I can't attest to the truth of this maxim as a general guideline, but in this, as in so many things, I have been slow (and with a relationship of just over five years, well, you see where this is going).

I was heading home this evening from the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Courthouse after attending Jerry Lynch's induction ceremony to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. It was an experience to be sure, and I'm glad that I went, but there was something unnervingly sad about being an outsider, a mere spectator, at an event I might once have attended as his family, the girlfriend or fiancee or wife of his son.

After the ceremony various members of his family came up to say hello, giving me hugs, one of them holding my hand and telling me about the recent death of a family member, another whispering to me, "Emily, I've missed you so much."

Truth be told, I miss them too, and that whole world, that whole life I was once so intrinsically a part of.

But all of that was warm and good and nice, even if a little bit awkward, and even if a little bit sad. And it was good to see Jerry and Karen, his wife, even if only long enough to hug them and wish them well.

It wasn't until I was heading to the elevators that I ran into the old boyfriend, Jerry's son, standing in a doorway talking to a man in yet another suit (a courthouse full of suits, and there I was in my pink shawl sticking out like a sore thumb!). I wasn't sure what to do, given that I'd just found out he'd just passed the California bar, that his grandmother passed away yesterday, that his father is an even bigger bigwig than before. I wanted to congratulate and console and commiserate and applaud and make it be three years ago, five years ago, my arm again linked through his.

I paused and smiled, almost reaching out to him, and then kept on going when he continued his conversation with the suited man, feeling abruptly as if all the air had been sucked out of that seemingly endless hallway, and willing with all my might, all my being, for him to come after me (this is so often what we did). I took the elevator down to street level, crammed in between half a dozen important-looking men in business attire, pushed my way out into the dark and rain and headed across town toward the train, all the while wanting to curl up in a ball, sobbing, gasping for air I couldn't seem to find, waiting for him to come comfort me (this is so often what we did).

It took the walk to the subway station, and a long train ride north, and a text message from my new sweet boy wondering how the evening had gone before it fully hit me -- that this, these overwhelming feelings of sadness and loss and doom, this was how I often felt during those five years that he and I were together. That what I was feeling tonight on that walk, and have felt every time I've seen him since he left so abruptly almost three years ago, wasn't because of his absence, wasn't because of missing him so very much, or so desperately wanting him back, but rather was inherent to what our relationship was.

And it hit me, too, that I don't need to feel that way, and that that space we created together, that space so often full to the brim with need and dependency and rage (and yes of course, in its way, love), is not a space I inhabit anymore.

I got home, powered up my computer, spent an hour or so chatting with my boy on the far side of the world, and had some soup. Now it's time to head off to bed and I imagine, I have no doubt, that I will sleep much more soundly tonight than I have in awhile.