I'm [Not?] Yours

Rob and I held hands. I looked at him, and was surprised. He wasn't the same man I'd been pining for. Something had changed.

I don't know what changed. I'm not sure how it happened. I don't know if it's temporary. But, yesterday, after going through the motions of mine and Rob's usual interaction, I had to acknowledge that our pattern felt empty. Void of any emotion besides nostalgia and friendship. Expired. And Rob looked different to me. Literally. Figuratively. He was different. He is different.

I told him this as he walked me to the bus stop. "I look different?" he asked, incredulous. "But you moved out two days ago."

"I dunno. You just do. You... look... different."

"Good different? Bad different?"

"You... just... don't... look like you."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't look like the man that I was in love with. You don't look like the same guy I'd hoped would turn things around and validate my love."

He nodded slowly. "Oh. That sucks."

And it was true. Somehow, the chasm between us had grown. I'd been emotionally distancing myself from Rob for a long time, but it was all the more evident last night, when I'd realized that his mom knew things were dead and done between he and I. When I no longer felt the need to nag him about his lack of a job. When I acknowledged that Rob has his own little swagger and he's attractive, but sex would only be sex. There would be no making love. Not anymore.

Even though I'm able to acknowledge and identify these feelings, I still haven't internalized them. They still don't feel real and true. I haven't accepted them.

There's a certain kind of satisfaction in knowing that I've moved on. There's relief and sadness at our relationship ending. But there isn't any disappointment. There isn't any anger. There isn't any remourse. Or regret.

This morning, when I put on VH1 at my new apartment, Jason Mraz's video came on, and I felt a stirring in the middle of my chest that I haven't felt in a long time. It took me aback and it took me a while to figure out what it was. Even now, until I wrote that sentence, I don't think I knew exactly what it was. I just knew that it was familiar and full of adrenaline and passion and fire. I just knew that it has to do with timing, with the way the world is, with the fact that it's Election Day, with my new place and my emotional distance from my last big love.

It's hope.

I'm hopeful that I have finally learned how to have a successful relationship. Not necessarily successful in that it'll be the last love relationship I'll ever have. Just that I've learned how to love and how to be loved and how to end things when either isn't happening. I'm hopeful that being with Rob has taught me more about myself and about what I want in a partner. I'm hopeful that today, Barack Obama will be elected, and a small part of my beliefs will be personified and actualized by this man being the President of the United States. I'm hopeful that the world - my world - is becoming a better place.