Army is leaving. He’s not going off to war, not to some distant dessert covered country but to Tampa. Where people go to die. Prehistoric man had Tar Pits to dispose of their elderly. We have Florida.

I’ve known it was coming. Since our first date I knew. What I didn’t know was that he’d still be around seven months later or that I would want him to stay. So, I’ll ask you again. What do you do when your relationship is ending? When you have a date when you know it will be over?.

How do you function when the dark cloud looming off in the distance for so long, has found its way directly overhead, attempting to block the sun at every turn and threatening to storm before you’ve remembered to open your umbrella?

To be honest, over the course of this relationship, my feelings towards this man have fluctuated more than a schizophrenic politician on a teeter-totter:

“He’s perfect – but I’m not over Fuckhead”

“He’s wonderful – but I don’t think I’m cut out to be a military wife”

“He takes care of me – but he’s leaving and I’m going to have to learn to live without him”

“He’s PERFECT – but is he perfect for me!?”

Because I’ve known that he’s leaving, it hasn’t exactly inspired me to open the emotional floodgates and give this relationship a real chance. Perhaps this is one time the Canadian got it right.

Nine months before he left for law school, he started to withdraw. He bucked all my attempts to continue a relationship even in the face of inevitable separation. Still retaining some semblance of romantic optimism at the tender age of 24, I was very much of the “no day but today” school of thought. The “let’s be happy today and not worry about tomorrow” mantra. He didn’t want me to get any closer and risk making it any harder.

So who was right? I still cried. But maybe not as much as I would have? I still loved him, but maybe not as much as I could have? Did we wasted precious time together or did we soften the blow?

While logically I know that it’s self defeating to keep worrying about the evitable and to let it spoil the time you have left; part of me hopes that whatever walls and barricades I’ve managed to build, will still be standing after the next two weeks.

Frankly, with the cloud of separation growing at an exponential pace over all my attempts to keep my blue skies blue – its hard not to feel frustrated. And angry. Even if it WAS/IS good that we met and event if he WAS good for me and what I needed circa a broken-hearted January….I’m just tired. I’m tired of the leaving and the goodbyes and the tears and building back up: a little stronger and a little thicker.

Then again, maybe its classic Scarlett – only wanting something that I can’t have. Either way, I’m sick of the walls and the floods and the storms and the survival and the reconstruction.

Isn’t there anything that lasts forever?