Happy news first: I am having as relaxing a vacation as I can. Yesterday my dad cut work early to nap and then take us to the movies; we saw 28 Days Later... and for some reason I was somewhat resistant to seeing it, but I wound up being quite drawn in and enjoyably unnerved. I've been talking solitary, quiet walks through the neighborhood - serene, and such an appreciable change from my adolescence when I pounded the pavement not out of quiet communion with self but of raging self-hatred.

I've been leisurely doing the crossword puzzles in the good old Waterbury Republican-American (tongue firmly in cheek, you understand) and my mom and I played cribbage a multitude of times and I didn't win once although I came so so close!

I emailed Gideon on Tuesday to thank him for such a lovely time on Monday and I had been a touch nervous that perhaps he hadn't felt the same way (although I kept a reassuring litany in my head: "he wouldn't have stroked my arm/raised his glass to toast our meeting/sat with me after the movie/etc. if he weren't interested") and I was right to be reassured. He emailed me last night to concur. He wrote:

You're not only beautiful, but every bit as good-hearted in person as in email. You radiate warmth. You should bottle it and deliver it to the millions who lack it.

I still flush and blush and fluster to read those words. I am charmed and enchanted by his attention and only need to remember, please Aimee remember, stay in the moment of what is, don't rush to what you want things to be, how you think things should be.

How I think things should be, how I thought things were; this brings me to the deep grief of this week, which I have only alluded to.

Brian and Keith have split up.

It's been a week now, I've had just about a week to digest it, and after a full day of sobbing when I first heard, I believe I'm coping better than I expected. (I imagine the physical distance makes it easier; going back to the city may bring new challenges.) I will not go into details; ultimately, really, it's not even my business, although my heart has always brimmed bursting full with love for both of them, and it always will, no matter what either of them have done, haven't done, whatever.

Am I being naive? Perhaps. But I have ties to each of them that I will not sever; I don't know that I even could. Whether it is in my best interest or not, my friendship is often accompanied by an uncompromising loyalty. It was a year ago today that Brian and Keith mobilized so swiftly to help me leave Louis; I wonder if they know how essential they were to that process? I honestly don't know if I could have done it without them. As shameful as this is to admit, the fear of losing their respect and friendship (and that of my family) was my primary motivation for me to sever the relationship. I couldn't have looked them in the face knowing that they knew Louis hit me, and going back to him anyway. I will always treasure that they opened their home to me, that they helped me save myself.

Yet I often am so consumed by gratitude for the kindess of others that I can sometimes turn it into an indebtedness, almost a subordination, as if I never deserved it and must grovel and scrape to make up for it. (I exaggerate, yes, but that is sometimes how it feels.) I am stronger than that now - I am a different person. Now is not the time to grow maudlin and weep and feel helpless (although I will grieve as much as I need to, for the relationship that was "Aimee&Brian&Keith", although that grief must be my own, or at least not a burden to either of them.) I am a good, strong friend - my naivety and inclination to romanticize notwithstanding - and I will love both of them fiercely, individually, no matter how much I may yearn for the past, no matter what they feel about each other. No easy task, but who ever said that love in any of its forms is easy?

Last Friday Gideon called, just hours after Keith had called with the news (and how I hate change, and rail and rant against it, to no avail!), and right before the phone rang I had been sitting at my desk at work useless, trying to stop crying with only a modicum of success. I rushed him off the phone with a tremor in my voice and the excuse of being terribly overworked, and later that afternoon I sent a brief email apologizing for being so curt and an cursory explanation for why I was. He wrote back to me:

It's completely and totally fine that you had to rush away, and you're indescribably sweet for sending an explanation. And I'm so sorry that you were in such pain! I've been in a similar position, and it feels like the sky has crashed down and the earth has given way.

And I was so touched by his kindness; I am very taken by him, and it is somewhat disconcerting to meet someone new and experience this slowly-building excitement and connection and hope in the midst of all this tumult. But this is life. I am living as fully as possible, with all the confusion and contradiction that a life well lived brings.