how other people live

my friend m moved into a new unit in his building in downtown seattle. the entire place is a habitrail of amazing art, both in the common areas and inside his apartment. he now has a loft with a glass ceiling ala 'barefoot in the park' that opens onto a private roof across the street from the seattle art museum.
i took many more pictures than this.





i could never be in this environment with t.
he moved everything out this saturday while i was at work. i came home to find the walls bare, the closets empty, geddy lee gone. it was sobering... and really fucking relaxing. i turned on the lights and took a long 3am shower with the door open, then read in bed for as long as i wanted. little things make me happy. it had been a long time since i'd done such things. sunday i cleaned and rearranged, incredibly content, pushing aside the worry that i'm probably going to be one of those old spinsters who always lives alone. but is it prefering solitude... or just choosing the wrong people to do it with?
he still does not know how to be honest, communicate, be accountable. he snivels and sulks and flakes around and tells the same fucking stories and says "i didn't mean to" and "i don't know why i do that" far too much. and i am still driven insane by these mannerisms, shrill to the point of violence, learning that i can actually bruise the palms of my hands by smacking the wall hard enough. "you're a fucking adult!" i would yell, the apex of maturity myself. "how can you not know how you're coming across or why you're doing something?"
he reacted horribly to some things i told him about our time apart- something that happened to me about a year and a half ago that only s knew about. t freaked out and... acted like a fucking bully, basically. and i told him then that this was not working and to get out of my home. i said "i refuse to live like this again."
he agreed to see a counselor. i am not holding my breath. we are still 'together', but that almost feels like default at this point. he does not know, for example, the extent to which i'm planning moving from seattle this winter. that's a conversation i have no fucking desire to get into. there are reasons, after all, why we're divorced.
but i still, naively, believe in eternal love. and i fucking forgive everybody. these traits tend to backfire.