The Day I Did Yoga After Breaking Up With Kirsten, Sort Of

It was weird how much I wanted to have sex with Kirsten after work. For the first time in a long time, I felt overwhelmingly teenage-horny, where I couldn't think of anything else. But these were misguided hormones, part frustration, part anxiety. My sexual relationship with Kirsten is over. When we last had sex, maybe two weeks ago, neither of us knew we'd get involved with other people--she with Collin in San Francisco, me with Jenny in Midtown--and all of a sudden we've quietly retracted back to being just friends. It's weird to break up with someone you're not actually dating. 

So we kissed, and we talked, and we had brief make-out moments that fizzled out like dud fireworks and left us groaning and pulling away. It didn't feel wrong. Neither of us are officially in relationships, but we know we're willingly on track to be and neither of us expected that to happen any time soon. But here we are, like we're stumbling together out of this weird dream and still trying to hold hands as the real world pulls us apart. It's all kind of romantic, I think. 

We stop kissing and I pull away from her. "Tell me to stop and I'll stop," I say, sitting on my knees on the bed beside her, and she looks up at me and says nothing in return. 

For attempting the ill-advised friends with benefits routine, I think we pulled it off really well, and hence that makes it all the stranger to take those steps backward and remember that it was always meant to be temporary. 

What today felt like was what growing up should feel like. It should hurt. Growing pains. This is me falling in love, admitting this, and shutting off parts of me that I'd been encouraging since August. I can't sleep with Kirsten, and she can't sleep with me for the same reason. It's not supposed to be easy. It's not supposed to make sense. We're good people and we know what's best. 

"We need to learn how to be plutonic," she said. 

And the craziest thing of all would be if Jenny doesn't like me back. If Jenny doesn't fall in love. If Jenny and I don't have a timeline together. But those questions are the ingredients of heartbreak, so I honestly don't care at this point if Jenny likes me back, because heartbreak would be an equally enrapturing experience. 

Katie cancelled our pseudo-plans. I think that timeline is over. 

Due to the aforementioned growing pains, I had a pretty shitty day at work. I forced myself to be pleasant, which usually doesn't take as much effort, and couldn't wait to get home and decompress. After having the last three days off, opening at Old Soul feels like a bad hangover. After work I sulked with Kirsten in my room, our frustration leading nowhere, and she left for work. I went to yoga to see if that wouldn't get my mind on track, and it did, and I am really starting to get into this yoga craze, and afterward I showered at home, got dinner from Crepeville, and edited some of these photos I took today. 

Have I learned anything from this closing chapter? I've learned a lot. I've learned that love is a very fluid thing, very secretive at times, elusive and rare. I'll be the first to admit that I loved Kirsten, but I doubt I'd be able to explain it. It just was. We clicked, and now we un-click, still friends, always friends. 

In other news, Shaun is doing well with his new girl, Chelsea, and Kirsten is going back to see Colin in San Francisco on Tuesday. No word from Sac State and my Peace Corps application is on hold. I completed my FAFSA and my tax-return was direct-deposited. I'm addicted to the song "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People, as well as "Shake Me Down" by Cage the Elephant, and the band Wild Nothing. No progress on the splitting of the AT&T bill, so far as I can tell, and I haven't heard anything from AJ about it. I need to do my laundry. I need to go to bed early. 

Everything is going to be okay. 

- Left to Fry