Personal History

 It's so much harder to pretend you're sane when you get into your thirties.

I was with a girl for 5 years, we lived together in a house she owned.

When we broke up I found myself homeless late on an otherwise unremarkable Thursday, calling a friend of mine to see if I could crash on his couch.

For reasons I cannot fully articulate I decided that every year I would dedicate three days on the anniversary to fasting and remembering. It seemed like the right thing to do.

I stand by that decision but it is damned difficult to explain to friends, let alone strangers.

"You're not drinking tonight?"

"No, I'm fasting."

"Why?"

"The personal holiday I keep that doesn't yet have a name where I fast in remembrance of the time five years of relationship crumbled into ashes and I was homeless."

Let me tell you, even people you've know since childhood will give you strange looks at that one.

It was so much easier in my twenties. Real life was still some distant concept. The objectives were pretty clear and simple. Go to class, make some gesture at doing the work they required, meet up with friends and have a good time.

That was it.

Heartbreaks were intense but short lived. The stakes were low and nothing reached deep enough to have a lasting effect. There just wasn't enough history.

 Ten years later there is just so much history everywhere.