“Everyone will say it’s because we moved in together,” I said.

They could think that. But we know better.

“I think living with one another is what kept us together longer,” Mark justified and nuzzled his nose into my hair like always. I agreed.

“We’re just two very different people on two very different paths,” he said.

I think I’ve known this for a while. And I think he did too.

We held each other for what felt like seconds all day Monday – my back against his chest, head in my wet pillow, and his arm around my midriff.

Nothing happened to instigate our breakup – there was no terrible fight or disagreement or act that set one of us off. Neither of us met someone better. It was an amicable and mutual decision that things just weren’t working out.

“At least we gave it our all,” he sighed.

For the past two years, we had been fighting to maintain a long-distance relationship – he in Syracuse performing with his band of 12 years, me in Fredonia finishing my Masters. I had been living in the city for five months when the call I’d been waiting for, for years finally came:

“I want to be with you,” Mark had said over the phone.

Because of a financial and emotional deficit in both our lives, we’d decided that sharing an apartment would be a satisfactory restoration.

Excitement was the initial emotion to fill me after we moved his belongings into my already cramped 12- by 9-foot bedroom. We got to see each other every day, eat meals with one another and live “normal” lives together.

But like smoldering embers burning below the surface, impossible to extinguish, a new sensation began to fume inside me: something didn’t click.

He wanted to save money, have more time to himself to jump-start his recording career, and discuss topics dealing with capitalism and the economy, while I longed to travel, constantly be on the go exploring this city and other lands with a companion, and discuss theory, fine wines and alternative cultures.

Many other divergent and significant interests began to splinter at the seams and “small things” became defining things.

“I think we have three-fourths of an amazing relationship,” he said in retrospect. “I’m not sure if that is enough to make it last, though.”

“What will we tell people?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I guess that it just wasn’t meant to be,” he answered.

I looked around my bedroom at the dresser that did not belong to me, dirty clothes crumpled on my floor that were not mine, new books, notebooks and a computer on my desk that sat next to my own.

Since December, this had been our room.

Breaking up in New York City – especially when two people live together – is similar to, yet unlike, breaking up anywhere else. Because Mark is still searching for a full-time job in a locale that is laying off people left and right, we are forced to continue to share an apartment until he saves enough money for his own.

This could last a few weeks, or a few months.

But we are determined to maintain a friendship through and after this difficult, confusing and overwhelming period of our lives.

People may assume that the love faded; or that “men suck”; or that I am a selfish woman for not wanting to be a homebody. But only Mark and I will know the truth:

Our love for one another is still there. It always will be. But sometimes that is not enough.

Originally published Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010 in The Observer