thelesbianlifestyle.com

I broke up with my first girlfriend about six months ago.  We bought a house, started a business, and adopted eight (yes, eight) pets together over the six years we were together.  As you can imagine, it hasn’t exactly been the easiest break-up.  And although I didn’t have an affair, there was someone else, and that someone else and I didn’t wait very long after the break up to start our own love story. 

I’ll take the blame for the pain that followed, and I might even say that my ex is a saint if she didn’t make me crazy every 2.3 seconds of the day.  Now, some of you are probably wondering why she has that much opportunity to make me crazy, and trust me, sometimes I wonder that myself, but we’re trying to do this typical lesbian ex-turned-best-friends thing. 

Six months ago it seemed all so easy in my head.  She and I fought over sex, and over money, and over the lifestyle we wanted to pursue, but we still cared about each other and enjoyed spending time together so breaking up and becoming friends made logical sense to me.  I really honestly thought that we would get along better without all the complications of being partners.  Yes, falling in love must have filled my brain with some kind of insanity.  Either that, or I was having a manic spell.  It’s really hard to say.

All I know is, there is rarely a day that passes without my ex or me in tears and we still are fighting on a regular basis.  I have other friends.  We get coffee, see a movie, talk about politics… I know what a friendship is, and what she and I are doing is not a exactly a friendship.  It is actually rather like being in a relationship only without the fun or the sex. 

We talk about taking a break, taking space, blah, blah, blah but we don’t.  I’m not saying there haven’t been changes over time.  It does get easier.  I mean, she doesn’t show up outside my apartment screaming at my girlfriend that she is a homewrecker, and I don’t call her fourty times in the course of two hours because I don’t know where she is for the first time ever and I theorize that without me to nag her she has finally emassed such a large pile of laundry that it has fallen and smothered her. 

I am not by any means sitting here saying that my ex is all to blame.  I’m a Scorpio, and if you know anything about Scorpios then you probably are closing your browser now and scurrying off in fear.  We’re not bad people really, but we have a tendancy to be a little… well, jealous.  (Some people like to call us crazy, but I think we’re just misunderstood.)

No, it’s both of us.  We can’t just end our relationship and get on with our lives.  We have to set and reset boundaries, and use words like boundaries in the first place, and go to therapy and talk about what one’s therapist said the other one’s dream meant. 

But still we keep at it, because in between all of this craziness there’s still laughter, and the knowledge that comes from knowing someone so well for so long, and being known like that.  Underneath that ex of mine I know is my best friend in the world.  I can’t live with her, but I certainly can’t live without her.  Go ahead and call me crazy, but I’m not ready to give up yet.