Spoke to Alex yesterday. He’s in Sudan where all aid organizations are being evacuated. I’d been reading the news, scouring the web for more information but hadn’t talked to him. I’d slept with the phone by the bed in case he called – or worse, in case someone else called about him. I felt torn and weird – here I am actively working with a lawyer to draw up papers, which is such a relief, but I’m also worrying about this person who I still love in many ways and who is in this crazy situation. 

The talk was good. I read him newspapers over the phone because he has no source of news there.  They’re all in lockdown until they evacuate. We talked about the kids. The dog. Springbreak. And then the conversation ended the only way it can when you’re talking to someone you’ve known for eighteen years who is being ordered about by a crazy president of a country with an ongoing genocide:  ”I love you.” “I love you, too.”

It reminded me for the hundredth time of how relatively close Alex and I are to having a working, healthy relationship. And of how many people would take what we have. There are women who would accept his penchant for lying and his financial mess-ups because he’s a great cook and a wonderful dad. Just as there are men who might turn a blind eye to my tendency to fall in love with a different person every  few years because I hold everything else together. 

I wonder how each person decides what her limit is? How do we know when enough is enough? It would be so much easier if there were rules and guidelines – speed limits of love. Instead, it’s all got to come from the  gut.