Set Out Running...

Before I moved out here to Las Vegas I would listen to this Neko Case song Set Out Running because it reminded me of him. Of driving around D.C. and going on movie dates. How the air seemed electrified with energy between us and I couldn't help but think that this was something real and good. Neko Case sings: if I knew heartbreak was coming, I would have set out running... Her voice is thick with those lyrics.

Sometimes you push and push and push up against something until it breaks. And when you live in an apartment complex surrounded by boxes and looking at the parking spot where his car used to be before it was stolen, unemployed and trying to find a new place together, you think: this is the hard part. Because one minute you are cooking dinner and watching Deadwood, and the next you are threatening to pack up and move to Portland, and that you can't take it anymore. And he calls your bluff.

Part of me wishes I hadn't come out here at all. That I had kept him in this place, in late nights in D.C. and playing pool in Boone. But without exploring things you are just stuck. You can't figure anything out that way.

I slept on an air mattress at my sister's friends place last night. He had towels and clean sheets ready for me. He just took me in and helped me realize that this was the worst of it and it will soon be over. Things had gotten too hard, and after crying all day and trying to explain how alone I felt and how much this hurt, he just looked me in the eye and couldn't give me anything. We are dealing with things differently, he says, whatever I knew of him gone from his voice. It is cold and distant, because he says he has shut down and will deal with things later. And every time I saw him yesterday I would try to act the same way, but in a minute I'd be crying, because suddenly everything was misplaced.

I should be thinking I have all the options in the world. I could go to Portland for real this time or Chicago to be near good friends. LA seems to be out of the question now that I am running out of money. Once I hear back from the job here in Vegas I think I will really know how I feel. Right now I feel alone here, but that's because I have nothing connecting me to this place. When we were talking yesterday he mentioned going back to North Carolina to stay on a friends couch. And I thought: you'd give up? Just like that? But I would be doing the same thing in Chicago or Portland or LA. It seems I can't make a decision for myself, either.

I really don't want to do anything today. I feel like leaving to go to yoga is even going to be a struggle. My sister has told me to not make any decisions yet, but I feel like I've become transient in Las Vegas and I'm itching to get out of here. Would it just be stubborn to stay? Like all big changes, I made this move for myself. And now all I have to worry about is me. It is the first time in a long time that I've had that option. It's like I don't know what to do with it.

I wish I had that Neko Case song on my computer. The CD itself is in a bag at the apartment, waiting for me to come pick it up. I want to go pick it up and replace the stereo in my car and blast it as I drive around Las Vegas. Because I think that now is the time to be dramatic. To just swim in it. To really think about things in the moment, now, so that in time, I will be able to completely move on. Because that's what I'm going to do.