It's official. I am no longer J's Girlfriend. I guess I haven't been for a long time, in a sense, but at the same time, I am finding it difficult to fathom.

J and I recently had our 5th anniversary, which was passed by us both in unusual silence, no presents, no morning cuddle, no breakfast in bed or lingering at the dinner table way too late with a bottle of wine.

So dear J. I miss you already. Tonight, when I am doing the proverbial camping out on my friend's sofa so that you can wrap up your belongings and move back to Britain, my thoughts go to you, to us, although there is no us anymore.

I cried all morning, and I cried after you went out to do a few errands and to leave me in peace to pack up the stuff I needed for the weekend.

You have been kind to me, so, so kind.

I am not denying that being with you has been hard, probably harder than being with most other people.

But I feel that what I have had in return, the chance to see you open up and occasionally daring to dream even, has been amazing.

We have seen the world together, slept at ridiculously luxurious and horrifyingly bad hotels in several continents.

You held my hand through so many horror films, though you hated them all.

I worry for you, that you will retreat into your shell and stay there until life suddenly has passed you by. I worry for you, that you will meet someone else and be happier than you were with me. I want you to be happy, but I still am not at the stage where I am ready to look it in the eyes that there might never be an "us" again.

We talked so much this weekend, more than we have in the last year added up. Frank talk, with all the pressures of having to build a life together lifted, your fingers discovering the curves of my toes for the millionth time, me sniffing the crook of your neck as if you were my baby. You were my baby. And I was yours.

I think I am still numb. I am keeping all the if onlys and what ifs at bay, because I think they would drown me if I don't let the sea of tears subside first.

I sit here gazing across the ocean, lights twinkling on the islands out there. I take one hour, one minute at a time, breathing through, staying alive. I think of you, always. But that too will pass.

Although I feel relieved, relieved that I will no longer have to watch my every step, to be vigilant as to whether you have had a bad day, to bite my tongue as you fail to respond to me in a fashion I don't just think is mechanical, despite all this, all I remember now is all those mornings where the curves of your body fitted mine so perfectly, the smell of your wollen sweathers and white t-shirts, the top of your head and the palm of your hands. The nice conversations, the laughs, the intimacy. Not the long evenings of silence or the pointless, pointless arguments that have always appeared to come out of nowhere.

Soon, you will probably be another one of my exes, that I check out on facebook when I'm bored and never really contact.

I'm just not ready to take in that part yet.