The Break-Up

The first time I got broken up with I was 19, which is actually pretty late in the game considering I'd been going out with boys since I was 13. Here's how it all went down...

The Situation (or- Why it was Never Going to Work):

He was 14 years older than me (which is normal for me, but in this case, it was a huge gap sometimes). It was a long-distance semi-open relationship (kind of like, what you don't know can't hurt you but let's not kid ourselves kind of thing). We had nothing in common other than each other. He was a handsome man who got a lot of attention from women, and I consequently lost a lot of weight and worked out till I was almost spitting out my uterus, every day. I thought that maybe if I got really really hot, he wouldn't look at other women. (Take your guess on how well that plan worked out). In the year that we were together, we never used the word love. And I faked orgasms every time we had sex (at that point I had not even had a real orgasm yet, so all I knew was faking, and apparently I was really good at it. I no longer believe in or support faking orgasms, for the record).

Breaking- Up (or- The Process of Crushing My Heart):

Even with all the flaming red flags and as-clear-as-it-gets signs that we were not going to live happily ever after, I was still caught completely off-guard when he broke up with me. He had to do it twice actually. The first time he broke up with me, I was like, why don't we have sex, and then we did, and we ignored that he had tried to break up with me. A week later, he called me to tell me we really did have to break up. I drove to his place. It was raining and I couldn't find a place to park. I drove around his block for fifteen minutes, and my legs were already getting weak. I knew I was about to suffer a very great loss, and the last thing I wanted was to parallel park and then walk four blocks in the rain.

He opened his door and I started laughing. There was just too much tension in me- I was either going to cry or laugh or scream. He told me to come in. We sat on his tiny beige couch. Some things were said. He wouldn't look at me. He was being vague. "It's just not working." "It's not meant to be." Things like that. I wasn't having it. I wanted to know the heart of the matter. He finally looked at me. His eyes were watery. And then he said it. "I'm not in love with you."

I didn't stand a chance at holding back the tears that were ready to stream down my face. I couldn't have been "tough" or "cool" about it to save my life.

No, we had never said we loved each other. And yeah, that always seemed weird. But I always thought I felt it. And I figured that's what mattered. Oh, how dumb I was. How willing to lie to myself. How naive and hopeful.

As I sat on his couch, crying and unable to create any distance whatsoever from the emotions gushing out of me, I had to face the truth. This man- who knew me, who spent a year with me, who had been inside me, who had revealed to me who he was, who had warmed up my heart so many times- this man did not love me and he never would.

I had broken up with people before. I had broken hearts, I had witnessed the pain I caused. I had been in relationships with boys I didn't love and, after watching them fall in love with me and doing nothing to stop it, said the same thing to them. I'm not in love with you. Now, as I stood in their shoes, I felt disgusted with my cruelty. Was it really possible that I had inflicted this much pain on someone else and then kept on living and dating as if I hadn't just cracked someone's soul?

The Aftermath (or- My Semi-Death):

I don't remember how I left, how I got home, how I slept that night. It's all a blur. I remained stuck in the pain of that moment for several hours, days, weeks, months, and years. I couldn't get in my car without crying. I couldn't smell the things he liked to eat. I couldn't wear the clothes I'd worn with him. I couldn't hear my phone buzz the familiar tone of a text message without it paralyzing me in hopes that it would be from him- and it never was. I couldn't sign on to msn chat- in fact, I soon stopped online chatting almost for good. I didn't want to do anything that involved happiness or smiling. I was wallowing in this new kind of pain, a pain I couldn't believe existed- the pain of being left by someone I loved combined with the pain of not being good enough to love.

I thought I was going to die. I felt part of me had already died. I couldn't imagine ever feeling good again. I certainly couldn't imagine ever loving someone and opening my heart again. I couldn't get up in the morning, and then I couldn't sleep at night. I couldn't eat meals, only tubs of chocolate and buckets of vodka. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror, there was nothing about me I wanted to see. No one could have convinced me that this pain would ever go away.

The Ritual of Recovery (or- Life Goes On- Because it Has to):

But, eventually, I did recover, of course. About six months after it happened, I found myself at a bar, having a lot of fun with my friends and talking to lots of boys, and when I got home, I realized I had just gone several hours without thinking of him. That was when I knew I would survive this. It took two years to fully let him go, which involved a lot of random flings, eating, sex and the city, creative projects, time spent with friends, writing, and alcohol. I actually performed a ritual in order to stop holding on to my love for him and the idea that I couldn't love or be loved again. The ritual was taught to me by a teacher in grad school. Take a piece of wood (preferably one you've meditated with and given meaning), write on it what you want to let go of (in this case, it was his name), then tie a feather to it with a red string, which represents air and fire, and then go to a body of water and throw it in when you're truly ready to let it go. The ritual works for me because I feel like I am calling upon the four elements, and thus the universe, to help me and guide me. I sat by the river for four hours before I was ready to let go of him. I cried, I wrote him a letter, and I kissed the piece of wood. And then, I threw it in, and let him go.

A week later, I met the next man I loved.

That's just how it goes. We break some hearts and one day, someone breaks ours. We think we will never get over it. We think no pain will ever be greater. But we do recover. We love again. We get hurt again. We feel greater pains. The heart and the soul are unbelievably strong and stubborn. Stronger even than the walls we put up to protect them. We can get damaged over and over again, but our hearts still want to love. I think that's really beautiful, actually. I touch my heart once a day and say, "Thank you little heart, thank you for being so brave and for loving so deeply."

I'll end with a quote from my dad paraphrasing William Blake during the time I went though that break-up,

"We are in this world but for a little while, so that we may learn to love."

image from http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/10/05/break_up_wideweb__470x306,0.jpg