I have a new essay up on Salon. It’s about my breakup with Ellie (Just when you thought I couldn’t possibly write anymore on the topic!), but mostly it’s about love and transition and the ways that love gets shifted around as we grow and change.

I was talking with my therapist recently about why queer women are so often friends with their exes. I said, it’s because the community is so small, you can’t afford a lot of enemies. It’s easier to swallow your pride and move on. That’s the bitter viewpoint though. The more optimistic take is that we started off as friends so it’s not that surprising that we ended up there again eventually.

I wrote the essay back in September, right after Ellie’s wedding, and then I didn’t look at it again until recently. I needed some distance from the essay, like I needed some distance from Ellie after we broke up. But, it was San Francisco and it was expensive, so we continued to live together for longer than we should have.

Here’s a snippet:

There was a moment I remember a few months after we had broken up, but were still living together. Ellie burst through the front door in tears, knelt down in front of the chair I was reading in, and took my hand in hers. “What’s wrong?” I said. “What is it?” Expecting that she was hurt or something worse. Instead she told me that she had found an apartment. She cried and it was like she was confessing an affair, something truly terrible, and not that she was moving on with her life. I think about that moment a lot. We were trying so hard. She was trying to hurt me as little as possible and I was trying to pretend I was OK and neither was going to work until we let go.

Here’s a funny story. Ellie and my current girlfriend both grew up in Minnesota. Over Christmas they were both there and they went out for a drink. It was synchronicity at its most pure and lovely. I wish I had been there. They sent me a picture though, so I felt like I was. That’s love.