They say that breaking up is hard to do. Now I know, I know that it's true.
Breaking up doesn't necessarily, if at all, go hand in hand with a broken heart. I have had PLENTY of break ups, and never, not once was my heart broken, until now (of course, or what would be the point of this blog?). I never really had that deep of a connection with my past lovers. I cared about them (though certainly not all of them) and still do and it always just seemed fairly casual, even when it was fairly serious.
I can recall having a conversation with my sister about love shortly before I took the deep, head first, nosedive into the madness that is love. I was telling her about how I really wasn't into dating anyone at the time because what was the point? I'd be leaving the country in less than a year. Why get emotionally entangled with someone, hurt someone or worse, hurt myself--all for what? something that would last, in the large scheme of things, an insignificant amount of time? She somehow managed to convice me that it wouldn't be insignificant if it was love. I didn't know shit about love and didn't care. As cynical as my sister and I can be, I was somewhat surprised at her position on love, and how much worth she was attributing to the emotion. She'd obviously already been in love once, and subsequently had her heart broken once too and still through the pain of heartbreak she said it had all been worth it. It might not seem so significant, we're all somewhat familiar with the tales of the "Ghosts of Christmas Past"--how the ghost takes the person through what their life might have been had they not experienced x, y or z and they always say "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". HOWEVER this is all just rhetoric, when you read about it or even see it in a movie or on tv... But hearing it from my sister whom I had seen get really low during that horrible heartbreak period, and seeing my mom whose heart had also been broken into a million little pieces and had been so in the hole about the whole thing... hearing it from these two, made the difference. And so I went ahead, and tried for the first time, to dive, head first, into love.
It helped a little that my new lover was a swimming instructor and could ease me into the dive... but the shit was scary none the less. Suffice it to say that I allowed myself to be completely swallowed by the love this woman offered me. I allowed her to love me and I allowed myself to love her like I had never allowed myself to do before. I completely let go, and lost all control. Literally. All control, all of it. It was like I'd never taken swimming lessons before or something. Like I'd somehow cheated on all my swimming tests prior to this one and suddenly here she was, this beatiful feminine gentle instructor who... didn't so much instruct as much as she guided me. You know how when you're in swimming lessons the instructor places their hands and arms underneath your abdomen so you can kick around in a circle, and then without much warning they let go and suddenly there you are swimming along. She didn't really let go. And I kept swimming in the circles that got neither of us anywhere.
In any case, getting into the details of the drama that would envelop our relationship for the next year is sort of pointless and would entail getting tangled in a web of she said-she said. Suffice it to say that as far as "first loves" go, it met all the qualifications. It was replete with lies, manupulation, control, deceit, guilt trips, insults, sorries, I love yous, good sex and bad sex, faked orgasms, laughs, giggles, even a marriage proposal. Oh yeah when I said I dove head first into this love affair, I meant it, and I dove deep.
People have described our relationship to me as me being on a short leash... but you know what? I thought I had the prettiest little leash in the whole dog park (bitch park?) It had everything I thought I had ever wanted and I loved both my leash and the little bitch at the other end of it...I sure did.
How the HELL am I supposed to be expected to come up from air, when my ball and chain are deep down at the bottom of the ocean floor, and it seems she is the one with the key to unlock me? Of course it took me for-the-fuck-ever to realize she didn't have the key, I did and I had to let myself free.
How?
How can I separate the lies, manipulation, control, deceit, guilt trips, insults bad sex and sorries from the I love yous, the good sex, the laughs, the giggles or even the marriage proposal? And, moreover, how, after such a strange break-up could I separate the fact that I love this woman, from the conflicting fact that she and I do not work well together, and that being together would be the most unhealthy of options. How? How can I do this? How can I let go?
They say if you really love something you let it go, and if it comes back it was yours all along and if it doesn't then it never was. I don't really want her to come back. I know that would be bad. But I needed to let her go, and I couldn't. Not literally, not figuratively. I couldn't forget, the lies, the manipulation, the control, the deceit etc. And this surprises most people who know me. The easiest thing for me is to forget... shit I don't know what I ate yesterday. But this was important. This stuff touched me deep down inside, and sort of left a little scar... a scab really, that I couldn't stop scratching till it would bleed again. I liked the soothing itch "relief" I got as I scratched that scab, and I took a little comfort in seeing it bleed each time. I wasn't dead, I wasn't numb, I was human, and I hurt and I bled and I cried and I sobbed and I mourned the death of our romantic relationship.
Why couldn't she do the same?
Did I want to see her cry? Did I want to see her bleed? Did I need to see her heart break... maybe. It might have made me feel better to see that we were going through the pain of our break up together... But then again, it might have only been a superficial comfort and wouldn't have helped me heal at all (sort of like the superficial comfort of the bleeding scab that won't fuckin heal damn it!). Instead she found herself a new girlfriend all the while continuing her game of deceit, manupulation and control with (at least) me. And again, it hurt, and I bled.
Damn it it's like my heart wouldn't stop breaking. You'd think once the pieces got so small it would stop... but it doesn't. It finds new ways to break.
So I learned to forgive. I had to forgive her for the lies, manupulation, control, deceit, bad sex, insults, even the marriage proposal. Most importantly I had to define what this forgiveness means, and why I find it important to forgive. Forgiving her meant that I would no longer hold a grudge against her. It meant that I wouldn't feel resentful of her lies, her manipulation, her control, her deceit, her way of using sex... no. I couldn't resent that anymore. I was gonna give ME a freaking ulcer for crying out loud and there she is all happy and giddy with her new girlfriend and OUR dog... I was not about to sit in a corner and be all bitter and angry and sad. So I had to come to an understanding of why she did the things she did, why I did the things I did, and why we did the things we did together to each other. I tried offering up my explanations and was unsuccessful getting an explanation from her. It made me sad to think she didn't view it "appropriate" to delve into past unresolved issues with me, it made me sad that she didn't see the value in it. But I was doing this, I was forgiving her, for myself after all, not for her own personal benefit. So I analyzed and overanalyzed our behavior towards each other, and have been able to forgive her, and to forgive myself. I understand and therefore I can forgive.
So I've been able for the first time to let my heart heal. To not scratch my scabs, and to let the scars form. Sure, they'll leave their mark... like stretch marks you see on women sometimes. And I'll be able to see where those scars are, and feel them (after all they'll forever be more sensitive tissue) and I wont forget how those scars got there (or even who inflicted them) but they wont bleed anymore (hopefully) and I can look at them as learning experiences.
But the really shitty thing about breaking up... especially when it involves heart break (which in turn implies that the heart was deeply involved) is that we are no longer even friends (except on facebook) (and even then, that's an on and off friendship) and WHY? Why is it that when two people do not work out romantically they can no longer work out as friends? I know it is the kind of thing that "takes time" and I know I can't just call her up and talk to her like I would a friend. It just baffles me though, knowing that as friends, she and I would be great together. But we wont be. I chose to love that conniving, controling, manupulative little @#$%! and now I can't confide in her, I can't count on her to make me laugh when I'm down... Why is a friendship necessarily lost when a romantic relationship ends?
