I can see where this is going, and you know I don’t have the stomach for a second round of heartbreak. So let me be the one to say it: we could use some time apart. Maybe we find each other again after this all blows over, or maybe we grow apart and we don’t.
Don’t seem so surprised! Do you think I haven’t noticed your eyes drifting to the pajama drawer even after taking your morning showers, safely within the confines of the “business hours” of the Before Times, or the uptick in the number of weekend hours spent in elastic waistbands since the Fourth of July? We’re not going out in these muggy late summer evenings like we were in the hope-filled days of April and May. I thought the morning you jumped up and down till you managed to pull me up to your waist after a year apart – the same morning you got your second dose of Pfizer – was the start of our new chapter that would be written, uninterrupted, till “happily ever after.”
And I know what you’re going to say next – this has nothing to do with me, or us, but with others who choose to wear their Real Pants without giving a damn about Real Science and getting the miracle vaccine that could end all of this suffering right now. I get that, and I believe you. But I have to be the one to call it quits this time. Let me feel like I have control over this one aspect of my existence.
Oh honey, spare me the waterworks, especially when you’re standing there in your Old Navy joggers. You may miss the idea of wearing me, but you won’t miss the act of putting me on or sitting uncomfortably in a bar after a beer and an order of fries, feeling my button pressing into your belly with every breath.
Perhaps this break will allow you time to try out the Peloton that finally arrived two weeks after your first dose.
I’m sorry – that was cruel and out of line. I just can’t bear the thought of you shopping for a non-elastic replacement for me to wear during the next Reemergence. At least with the joggers I know the farthest you’ll go and most fun you’ll have is at Target. But the thought of you out on the town – having Real Fun in Real Pants that aren’t me – is still too much.
Anyway, when you’re in a place to reassess things, I’ll be waiting for you right here, draped over The Chair in your bedroom under a couple layers of bras that also had this conversation with you last week.