freezing feet

i'm not sure i believe in love anymore. at least not in the kind of love that must exist to sustain us. the selfless sort. as evidenced by my myriad relationships, friendly, sexual, familial, or a mosaic of the three, that smolder still only because i occasionally think to lean over and blow, everything eventually dissolves. sometimes gradually. sometimes all at once. sometimes noticeably. sometimes stealthily.
things just disappear.
generally because no one can ever be selfless enough. i couldn't be selfless enough to give them their baby without eventually needing something from it, some recognition, some emotional, composed masturbation. something to show. and they couldn't be selfless enough to say thanks and really mean it.
everything eventually wanes, but sometimes people insist upon puffing at their tinders, robotically trying to salvage a shred of what once was. because we get too comfortable. because the thought of severance brings with it thoughts of complication. we tolerate, accomodate, ignore, resent, fantasize.
we make up alone what we lost in love with the other.
and if this is the case, and i know i can't give him what, in his heart of hearts, i know he wants, or would desire if he had his silver platter of endless options, i'm not sure what rational sense it would make to embark on a decades-long deep-sea voyage in a vessel that's already showing wear, threatening leaks from all angles.
seeing him today brought back the things i loved in him. but i loved the things, not really him, because the things stroked me when i needed them. and i outgrew the things, or invested in them only idly because i found him generally tedious.
i know he finds me tedious. i see it in his eyes, hear it in his sighs. and i am. self-centered, snobby, cynical, crass, pessimistic, pouty, misanthropic, moody. a veritable dream partner if ever i've described one.
he gives the things i need, as this afternoon's fleeting visit filled with voids and hems and wells and small talk, not because emotion stirs him but because i demand him. which can only be foundation for a frighteningly unstable building.
and there's no red hair.
and i am still the incredibly shrinking woman, as she's so aptly named me, which only exacerbates my scrambly tendencies. there's no fulcrum.
except in us. and that fulcrum is the sort couples married ten years should find. nothing is sustainable, but should it wane so fast?
if it does, should i fool myself with discussions of veils and satin and pearls? so i can be princess pretty as i traipse out into the bitter end?
and what sort of thing can i reasonably expect from him? mediocre, tolerable, tepid coexistence?
sighs and rolled eyes?
i'm not sure i'm in a place to be anyone's wife. or depend on their money to fund my whole life.
i'm not sure what either of us needs, but i'm not wholly convinced it's each other.
and fuck if that's not scary.