Mount Engadine.

We didn't know it at the time, but this would be our last weekend away together as a couple. In my 2017 year-in-review, I wrote briefly about how we struggled; how we worked hard to maintain our love and our friendship after months of bitterness that had been making its way into the smallest spaces of our relationship for what may have been the last 2-3 years. Even the most minute moments of conflict bled their way into many moments in the present. We both worked hard to try and retrieve what we lost; I convinced myself that our problems were because I needed to be more patient, more kind, more loving—that if I chose him, I needed to choose him every day, even when he would frustrate me. He knew that he needed to be more present; a more active participant in our life and in our partnership, and I know that he tried, just as I did. 

Over the years I buried myself more into the things that I love doing. I kept myself happy so as to return that energy to Martin whenever I came home. For weeks at a time, that worked; but then the hurt I carried would return thrice-fold and I would remember the loneliness of living my life without my partner by my side, even though he was right there. I would feel agony over the things I could not change; over the distance my love could not cover; over wishing that I was someone else so that I would be more capable of loving him the way he was. It was never going to be enough to just eat and sleep next to each other for the rest of our days. Maybe I need someone who'll have the same thirst for his life, my life, and our life, as I do. This was never a matter of false advertising—this was always a matter of choosing to be happy with what I chose in the man that I loved so deeply.

We always knew that our approach to life, our energy, and our personalities were very different. We'd both thought that this difference would be the thing that would keep us bound together—always learning from one another. I thought that eventually our paths would naturally merge, and that moving to Canada together would be the first stepping stone to that. We would not have the framework of our old life to use as excuses for not doing things together or working on our life together. Here, we would only have each other. Before we left, I had said to him, “I don't want us to move halfway across the world and for our life to look the same”. But we got here, and I chased the adventures we talked about on my own. 

I can't ask him to be anything other than who he is, just as I can't ask myself to be anyone other than who I am. The new year arrived, and I awoke one day knowing that it was time. Time to let him and us and a big part of me go. I was calm, and there was clarity. It didn't hurt as much as it had when I thought about it in the past. Almost as if I had done all the breaking up in my head in the months prior. We let each other go from a place of deep love and respect, and even if it will hurt from time-to-time, we'll be okay. Sometimes, love just isn't enough.

This begins a new grieving process. Grieving for who we were, who I was, what we lost, and the future we could have had. Being together for 6 years and being in each others' lives for 7, we've spent most of our twenties with each other. We've seen each other through some fairly major milestones. We are, and will more than likely remain, each other's best friend. Saying goodbye is not a thing that we can do overnight; it will be something we do over and over again. Our lives are deeply intertwined, and now everyone else becomes collateral damage. Our families, who each adopted a new daughter or a new son, will walk this path with us too—Christmases, birthdays and special occasions will look different all over again. This year, life will look different all over again, and as change happens all around me, I can't help but wonder if the dust will ever settle for long enough to let me figure out what it is I want for myself, without being pulled in the direction of all the different lives I want to live.

Back to Mount Engadine—I'd booked this weekend away for us so that we could get away and reconnect after a difficult year. We never did anything for our 6th anniversary, and a weekend away right before Christmas seemed like the appropriate time to pause, be grateful for the year past (despite its turmoil) and look to the year ahead. There being no cell reception and limited WiFi at the lodge, we made personal rules not to look at our devices for any reason. Instead we talked by the fire and caught up on each others' lives; I journaled; we read our books in bed. We returned to simple moments of quiet, surrounded by the silent mountain wilderness. When I woke up at 3am on the first night, the world was so bright, the snow and the full moon collaborating to bathe everything in an eerie light that stops my heart every time I see it. The magic of how the world comes alive with no city lights; a show put on only by nature, igniting within me, time and again, a reverence for the universe we live in.

The next day, we hiked to Rummel Lake with a packed lunch and a lot of enthusiasm. I was so buoyant and content, for this weekend felt like the first real weekend of adventure we'd had in a long time, and may have been one of the very few hikes we did with just the two of us. We marvelled at the formation of frost and the clear detail of each snowflake on the ground and on the trees. Here, we have hoar frost: a deposit of ice crystals formed in clear, still weather, on objects exposed to the free air. It was one of those magical winter wonderland days, and just warm enough to avoid being uncomfortable—until we stood eating our lunch by the lake, which was still untouched by the day's sun. Despite our layers, -15ºC quickly became too much to bear.

I will be forever grateful for this weekend—a time of contentedness for us, not knowing that 5 weekends later we would be parting ways as lovers, and re-entering the world as friends.