The Thrill Is Gone...

Man, but I was hungry when I got up this morning. The pangs even woke me at 4:30-- an hour and a half before my alarm, and then every so often until 6. I ate a full breakfast before catching the train and even had a snack on the way up, while I listed to my new playlist, did some work, stared out the window and ran the impending conversation, that it's really too early in this relationship to have, through my head. I needed to be honest, kind, but without couching anything, and resolute. There are certain realities of my life that are not going to change and if she doesn't like them, or can't accept them, then she can't accept me. You're in or your out and you can take some time to figure out the particulars, but while you're doing that, you can't flake out on me. Maybe that shit flies for some guys, that rules shit, but not here.

This is not, of course, the exact conversational tack I was planning, but you get the gist of it. Pretty much whether or not she wants me is up to her, and I can't and won't try to convince her one way or the other, but she needs to decide. If she can't it's over. No decision means the decision gets made for you. I felt prepared to do this. I hate when someone makes you break up with them by extreme passivity, and really hadn't pegged her for it. I still hold out hope that I'm wrong. I'll be very disappointed if I'm not, but I am prepared all the same.

I started thinking maybe it was all the ab work in yoga that was hurting me so bad. I'd had a lot to eat, but still felt twisted and empty. By lunch, when I'd run myself through my conversation plan for the umpteenth time, twisting it this way and that and tasting it in my head (of course it will be nothing like that when it actually comes out-- eloquence is much easier in a one sided conversation) and then pushing it out, only to feel it creeping back in again and again, by that time hunger was full on gnawing so I ate a really big lunch: rice, beans, plantain, fries, salsa and a grilled chicken breast. Good stuff, but it might as well have been sawdust to me. I slogged through it without any desire, none of it filling the hole in my belly, until it was cold and I felt to disgusted to it any more? What was wrong? Was this not hunger? Was I getting sick again? Was it gas?

I'm usually one of those pretty in touch with my body type of guys, but this one had me stumped. It wasn't until we went out for dinner before the drive home to LA that it hit me, ready for disappointment or no, just how damned much I missed her. That, my friend, I was not prepared for. Fuck. There was the explanation for the empty pit in my gut. The stomach is the most sensitive organ to human emotion, but it was my heart that hurt.

Now there's a surprise.