I’m getting a divorce.

Today I officially announce my separation. It’s been a long two years, filled with triumphs, setbacks, and shouting myself hoarse. We’ve gotten an awful lot done together, and we’ve been as close as I’ve been angry (and about as often, too).

Maya and I are getting a divorce. We’ve come to a reasonably amiable agreement, and the separation should be a relatively quick and painless one. We’re working together on completing one last project or two, and after that, all hats are off. We’ll see how things fare, but we’re no longer relying on each other for personal or professional needs.

How did this happen? Well, the story demands some history first.

When I was boy of 11, I discovered Bryce through a magazine. Bryce seemed kind, open, powerful, easy to read, and really pretty, too. I had no idea at the time, but Bryce would profoundly shape my development.

Boy was Bryce great. Looking back, I’m almost chagrinned to realize that I was with him for so long, but he was one hell of a partner. Back when I was just a little kid, Bryce made me feel powerful. With Bryce, I created things that impressed my friends and parents, and there was a time when Bryce was the one I turned to when I was bored or had a couple minutes of free time. In fact, looking through my file logs, I see now how astonishingly productive Bryce made me. Sure, he was a bit thick at times, and I’ve certainly moved on, but Bryce was the best possible thing that could have happened to me at that age. Bryce sparked my interest in art and computers, and he fed me a steady diet of accomplishment that gladdened my parents. Bryce made creation a leisure activity.

For seven years, I was blissfully happy with Bryce, and we had so much fun together. But gradually, I became aware of Bryce’s limitations. Sometimes he would do things “the hard way” and make me work around it. Other times, I just got the feeling that as warm and happy as Bryce made me, I was capable of more than he had to offer. Eventually, I realized that I had to move on. It wasn’t easy, because I loved Bryce and was understandably apprehensive about leaving the stability of my comfort zone to enter the outside world. But Bryce had made me realize that my passions lay in 3D, and that he could never satisfy them alone.

I can’t remember how I found about Maya. Maybe it was a friend, maybe I heard about her through the grapevine, or maybe I knew about her for a while and just got up the courage to try her out once I had a reason. Whatever it was, we got together in February of 2005 and I was convinced that it would be a beautiful partnership. Poor naive me.

At the beginning, I admit that Maya well, kind of bowled me over. She was so experienced, and she could do so much, that I was a little intimidated. I made some tentative steps at doing things together, but it was very clear very soon that I was way, way out of my league with Maya. We talked things over, and I agreed to come back when I had some more experience.

I got the opportunity to acquire it when I went to college. In fact, there was a class available specifically for that purpose, and I hurled myself at it. Maya and I were together again. I learned about her personality, her quirks, her flaws, and all that she had to offer me. It was vast. She could do things I’d never even heard of, and she could do it well, too. The only problems were some communications issues we ran into, but I was confident that they would fade as we got spent more time together and got closer.

Again, Poor naive me. As I got closer to Maya and spent more time with her, I became more and more frustrated. Maya seemed to prefer math to art; she made me futz with numerical values and text fields and learn what I hated in high school, just to create art. There had to be a better way, but Maya didn’t know it.

Gradually, my dissatisfaction with Maya increased. So did my productivity and output, interestingly enough, but I always felt like I was fighting Maya to get things done, rather than working with her; I felt that I could be doing even more, even faster if only Maya would cooperate.

I eventually came to realize that Maya and I had fundamental personality incompatibilities. Maya likes absolute maximum choice and control, and she doesn’t like to teach people how to do things–she suffers no fools. I, on the other hand, appreciate a helping hand and gentle mentorship through new and difficult skills and ideas. Maya was spectacularly unsuited to deliver what I craved so badly. The friction increased.

Then Maya began to destroy my work. We would be in the middle of a project together, when she would scoop up a model I was working on and leave. I’d try to follow her, but she was too fast for me. When she came back, the model would be gone and she would wryly claim to have no knowledge of what happened.

I would yell and scream, but none of it ever made any impression on her. She would sit there and mock me.

Slowly, I began to dread talking to her. I avoided contact. I kept to myself. I stopped doing what I loved because my partner had broken our unspoken agreements and violated my trust.

So I left.

Maybe later I’ll talk about my future plans, but for now, I’m just glad to be rid of Maya.