According to one version of Inca history, when Cusi Yupanqui defeated the invading Chancay people and drove them from Cusco, he started a period of conquest that would soon reach over two thousand miles along the Pacific Coast of South America. He gave himself a new name as leader of the Inca people: Pachakuteq, which is literally “world turner,” but the connotation can be more like “earthquaker” or the more extreme “reality remaker.”
I’ll get to the point before you wonder why this is called a personal interlude. Two weeks ago Kristin and i broke up. All of a sudden, the future I had envisioned for us was overturned. I’m talking about the next decades. I just assumed that we’d be together for a long time, and it never really occurred to me that that might not happen. (On a sidenote I have to admit that my mom was right, maybe intermingling the house purchase finances might not have been the bestest idea.) Kristin hung on when I was at my lowest, and I literally owe her my life. But more recently we developed different social interests (basically she had them and I didn’t), and while I thought that was fine for us, she didn’t feel the same.
The field school students were very nice when they found out. They got me some flowers and a lúcuma mousse which was great.
Kristin and I still friends, best friends even, and we already joke around the breakup. I’ll still have a cool house and 3 cats when I get back home in August. But one day when I get my PhD and find a job, I’ll be leaving Columbia and Kristin will stay behind.
Yeah, I’m scared as hell about that day. My reality just got remade.