"Ill Always Remember You This Way"

But that rhythm confirmed what I already knew. My relationship with Cristian started to fall apart in real time. Between banana bread and Netflix, we were drifting. Our birthdays were a week apart; he forgot mine. I sent him a candle and a picture of a cake for his. We talked less. And when we did, it was always the same questions:

How are you?
Bad.
How are you?
Bad.
What did you eat? What did you watch? How long did you sleep?

In early April, one of his friends was murdered and he would just vanish for days, then weeks at a time. I didn't know how to be there for him and we once reached almost 15 days of him not answering any of my texts or calls before just reappearing as though nothing had happened. We ran out of things to say that weren’t sadness. Eventually, we both stopped pretending. We never officially broke up, but we stopped being “us.” There was no energy left to sustain love across a world that had shut down.

After I hung up that last video call, I thought back to Valentines Day and realized it was indeed similar to that pattern again and perhaps my emotional response was in partial recognition to what I knew what it was. In the last 5 of my relationships or dating or situationships, something would happen, a magical moment, a gift from the universe, an almost unbelievable day or night together where it felt like the world stopped and there was just me and this person. Inevitably, within 90 days of that event - the situation would come to a formal end. I came to think of it as a beautiful last gift - something to take the edge off and remind me that those moments are worth every penny and hardship along the way. I looked at the calendar and it had been 86 days. A new record.