Life After Leaving a Single Dad

 Amid a sea of Starbucks receipts, cracked "butt-rock" CDs, gym clothes and loose coins, I recently found a remnant of B in my floorboard. After returning the vacuum hose, I bolstered myself on the cushion of my passenger seat to examine a dime-sized, plastic blaster. Caught tears pooled in the canals of my hand, dampening the toy and soaking my skin in grief. I was not prepared to miss him this much.
 Christmas was hard.
 After a BB gun bonding moment with my twin brothers I snuck upstairs to weep in my closet. I had pictured the holidays so differently. N and I had considered a road trip to Oklahoma so that he and B could meet my family. Though a group of seven-year-olds on Christmas morning sounds like a handful, it was something I ached for. I wanted a lot of things.
 I am now finding it exceptionally difficult to exist as a twenty-five year old.
 I wish I wanted to shoot Fireball, dance with handsy strangers and wake up in plate-full of eggs at the Waffle House on Dickerson. But I am still traumatized from a house party I attended last summer.
 While curled up on a padded bench in a Woodbine picture window, I was told by my best friend that I was making the biggest mistake of my life by dating someone twelve years older than me. I often wonder if our private moment was illuminated enough for the people on the front lawn to see me slowly disintegrate into nothingness. I never could get intoxicated enough to drown out the awkward, judgmental silence following "N couldn't make it tonight. He has B this week." It wasn't the responsibility of my friends to understand my decision, or even accept it. Most didn't. But I wish someone would have borne with me. I spent eight months shrouded in isolation, shame and loneliness.
 Although N and I separated four months ago, I can honestly say every moment was worth it.
 It ended, as Hemingway would say, "gradually, then suddenly".
 The deep knowing invited itself in at the first of November. N was under a lot of stress at work. We could never seem to end up on the same page. It was the fault of neither and both of us. He stopped making an effort. I started getting sassy. He stopped calling. I started going out. I have always been fiercely independent and a little too competitive for my own good. My goal was to out-wait his silences and give him the space he needed without actually admitting I cared. Sounds incredibly manipulative and prideful, right? Two weeks passed. A portion of me felt like a victor because I had not reduced myself to neediness despite my being plagued with tremendous sadness and curiosity. Then, at 10:51 a.m. on a Tuesday I looked up from my computer screen at work and began weeping. I knew it was over. So I made the call. Leaving someone I loved that much was the bravest decision I have ever made. I learned just because something isn't inherently bad does not make it good. And just because something is good does not make it great. In summary, we ended the way many relationships end...due to immaturity, selfishness, and lack of communication. Not because we were in separate chapters of our lives. Not because he had a child.
 In fact, I think it was those two factors that made us incredible for each other.
 I am not saying I am going to be scouting older, single fathers from now on. But I am saying it will be (and has been) incredibly difficult to return to my previous paradigm. There are things girls my age will never understand. Rightfully so. Most have not wept beside their boyfriends over lost love, worried endlessly about the doctors appointments of their significant other's child, or gone out of their way to build healthy relationships with their loved one's ex-wife. They will never understand breaking down over lost legos at a carwash in the dingy underbelly of South Nashville. I have been old and I have been young and I am trying to regain my footing at the latter. As I climb every wrung of this sweet and turbulent life I pray to God I never stop being moved by all the tiny toy guns that have, so eloquently, taught me something. I admittedly still feel so much like an outlier in my experience. I want to make the aftermath mean something.
 So, I will write about it. I will tell the truth. And when I am overwhelmed with grief because Star Wars has a new movie out, Mixel sets are half off at Target, or at the fact that hammerhead sharks weigh anywhere from 500 to 1000 pounds, I will find peace in the bittersweet knowing that I loved beyond my capacity and I grew insurmountably.