break ups

It was a year ago this weekend that Eric and I had the conversation marking the beginning of our end.

I still remember the details vividly: my opening salvo in the dark; the solid clack clack as I turned the beside lamp to its brightest setting; our squinting eyes; his pale, narrow frame leaned up against the wall, shoulders curled forward, the sheets up high and tight across his chest; the warmth of his arm across my back before I asked him to stop touching me. His reluctance to break the connection.

10, 9, 8 months ago, I wasn't sure I was going to survive how much that break up hurt. It wasn't a wail of "I'll never be happy again!" It was wondering whether that much pain might physically stop my heart.

Not that it was any special kind of pain. It was a normal kind of break up pain, the kind that most of us have lived through before. I wasn't clinically depressed, I could tell that even through the aching haze. Just sadder than I'd ever been before.

At least I thought. But I also wondered if my memory were askew, if it were just because it was my most recent heartache.

But chatting with Shelley over dinner at Domus a week or so ago, the Shelley who's known me for 8 years and nursed me through some doozies, I had my suspicions confirmed.

Our wine came, we raised our glasses.

"Here's to a good winter," she said.
"Indeed!" we clinked, sipped. I finished my thought: "Better than last, that's for damn sure."

And that's when she said it.

"I have never seen you as sad as you were last winter."

Mostly, I think, because there was nothing to cut the grief. In my other break ups that have hurt that much, the sad has contained another thick vein, comprised of relief, of righteous anger, of earned bitterness. A vein that could be easily condensed into: Thank God, No More Bullshit.

The day after Eric and I broke up, my first blurry morning thought was the same first blurry morning thought I'd been having for the past 8 or 10 weeks. "Eric. love. me?"

That morning, I knew the answer. I enjoyed about 5 seconds of experiencing that knowledge as relief before I realized its repercussions. And started crying.

It was a few months before I really stopped. Not bad, in the grand scheme of things, a few months of tears. Not the worst thing a person could go through, certainly not the most damaging. But it did make for one long fucking winter.

Obviously, the memory of that night has been with me the past few days, made me thoughtful, somewhat melancholy. But mostly, it's made me realize that the one year breakupiversary is only six weeks away. In those first three months, when I was worried about the continued beating of my heart, a year seemed like never.

A year is not never. It is almost now.

The relief is a welcome surprise.

When I wrote that I didn't know quite what to say about Chicago, that was a bit of prevarication.

Though I came back from Chicago in a bit of an emotional mish mash, I knew pretty well what I was feeling, and I'm sure I could have found the words - I almost always can - but it wasn't right to post about it then.

When CT came to Ottawa, I wrote that it took a couple of days for us to find our stride. But once we clicked, we really clicked, and we were meshed, tight.

It was the opposite in Chicago. The first couple of days, things were like they had been in Ottawa. But on Friday we switched rooms, and that seemed to be the fulcrum, when, as he wrote to me a few days ago, the rush of touching each other wore off, and we tumbled down into sad realities.

One of those realities being the knowledge that we were never going to last. Were never meant to.

We continued on, enjoying each other's company, seeing interesting things, but there was a unmistakable undercurrent of melancholy. Neither one said anything about it, though as has always been the case between us, we were thinking the same thing.

For my part, I was willing to coast on the surface. I didn't think a heavy conversation about what I was feeling and sensing would make anything better; I thought it would only ruin the time we had left together. We made plans to talk about the big stuff when we got home.

I won't go into the details of why we don't work. Those aren't really important. Though I will say it's not just the obvious 3000 miles. I will also say that as you get older, you realize that love does not conquer all, and never was meant to.

We've decided to not break up, not exactly, but to go on indefinite hiatus.

We'll shift to being friends, which is what we were drifting towards anyway, and maybe, sometime, if it works out, we'll take another trip together. Not to shut the door completely on the possibility of us, but to shelve it, high up.

It's been a lovely 4 months with him. I've learned an incredible amount. It's the first time I've been with someone I felt could take care of me if I needed it, where the hotza wasn't compromised by feeling safe and cared for. He is a kind and thoughtful person, honest with himself and with others, straightforward in communication, able to make himself vulnerable, able to ask for what he needs and accept what I have to give. He is a rare creature, in many ways.

And he always thinks I describe him with hyperbole.

I'm happy that I can clamber up to the top shelf and reassure myself that our possibility is still there, whether we take it or not.

More importantly, I feel lucky to have him in my life, as a good friend, held dear to my heart.

N.B. Eric! This is partially about how I'm continuing to process our break up. I don't say anything bad about you at all, but it might make you uncomfortable to know the painful details.

For many years, I didn't keep acetaminophen in the house. I didn't trust myself to have them around.

Yesterday was the 12th anniversary of the day I tried to kill myself by taking an overdose. I've written about this before, so I'll spare you those details.

I'm not sure if it's the fact that I made an attempt that shook me so much.

I'd been deeply depressed for months: I weighed 103 pounds, I wasn't eating enough to keep that up, I was sleeping 15 hours a day to avoid being awake, I was on anti-depressants, I was seeing two therapists, I was crying all the time, I'd already been to the hospital because I'd stabbed myself in the leg, I'd been having suicidal ideations for weeks. That I might try was certainly no surprise to me. That I did try?

My ex and I were having one of our huge knock-down fights that he wouldn't remember the next day. We were in our office, what had once been a dining room. I screamed something, I can't remember what, and ran out of the room, down the hall, to the bathroom, shut the door and locked it behind me.

I must have made the decision in the 4 steps between the office and the kitchen, because I grabbed a glass along the way.

That was the extent of my planning. A cup off the counter on the way to the pills.

That I hadn't planned it was a good thing to most of the doctor-types I ended up talking to. I suppose it meant I was less serious about it, that suicide as a real solution hadn't yet taken deep root.

Maybe that was good. But it left me with yet another reason not to trust myself.

Eventually, maybe 8 years later, I bought my first bottle of tylenol. But only a little one, only with about 20 pills in it. Nothing untoward ever happened. 12 years later, I fully trust myself with any kind of pills. Never occurs to me to take one, maybe two, other than when I'm in serious discomfort.

Reading this over, I'm realizing that you're probably waiting for me to make an explicit link about being dumped by Eric and suicidal ideation. Happily, the tangent is much more obtuse than that.

What that break up left me with is an inability to trust love in a way that feels very similar to how I was unable to trust my desire to be alive.

I know Eric loved me very much, to start. I believe, to end, that he wanted to love me as much as he had for those first few months. But he couldn't.

It was there, and then it was gone.

And that was that.

Even at the start, I knew our deal might be too good to be true. But I let myself go, really let myself fall into him, into us, thinking that I was strong and could handle whatever came.

I could, I did, I have; but the price was really more than I could afford.

Now, when someone acts like they like me, I feel myself curling my arms around the small hoard of coins I have left. This person can think I'm hot, funny, smart, blah blah blah. That's great. I love that. Who doesn't love that? But the moment I get even a hint of someone having actual romantic feelings for me, something inside seizes up, twisting around fast enough that it folds over on itself into an impenetrable knot.

Who knows, maybe in 8 years I'll be able to trust romance enough to keep it in the house.

N.B. Eric! This is entirely about how I'm continuing to process our break up. I don't say anything bad about you at all, but it's more than I would ever say to you in person. If you’re okay with reading that, fill your boots.

Truthfully, I'd been rather dreading Eric's return from Berlin. He left early April, I think, and oh, but it was a sore relief. I stopped shaking every time I saw a green parka. I went into Bridgehead without doing a surreptitious survey of the computer tables through the steamed up windows. I walked around the neighbourhood with impunity, as relaxed as one can be in early spring layers.

So that I'm sitting here in the umi cafe, an hour after I thought we were supposed to meet, and not steaming fucking mad? Pretty damn good. I must admit my first thought was, "You're fucking kidding me - he's late for the first time we have coffee plans? You are. Fucking. Kidding." But then I remembered a couple weeks back, answering the door in my cat hair yoga pants and thought, meh, probably just a mistake.

Feels much better.

I saw him a couple days ago too, at the Chateau Tabernac for a Canada Day barbeque. Chateau Tabernac is owned by people I met through him - I'd always called them Eric's friends. But I ran into A. a couple weeks ago, and he invited me to the C.Day festivities, warmly, genuinely. I ran into B. and D. a week after that, and they invited me too, same sentiment. On the day of, I walked in the door and D. gave me a huge hug; M. kissed my cheek and nearly squeezed the breath out of me.

"Wow," I said. "I'm a lucky girl. That's quite a greeting!"
"We're just happy you're here," D. replied, her gentle smile.

Their house is huge, so Eric and I didn't spend much time around each other. The times we did share space were awkward, I think for everyone present. But no more so than expected. He didn't seem to know where to put himself, what to do with his hands. I barrelled through it, the awkward pauses, my shifting stances, asking him brightly about his new job, making sure I was smiling big and not shaking.

The weird thing was that I didn't really feel like shaking.

It didn't feel like normal to see him. Not the normal we'd had, anyway. But he did seem like just a guy. These past months, over the tiniest-Megan winter, he was bigger than big, looming around every thought, in the nano-gaps between every pulse sending yet another wave of rusty blood through my busted heart.

And then there he was on the back balcony, the sun too bright in his eyes: his regular size. Not the guy who had flattened me, not the guy I'd felt had written me a cheque on an empty account. Just a handsome, clever boy in possession of a nice voice and cool way with words.

++

At the end of that last paragraph, I looked up, out the big windows, up Percy. He was standing in front of the Tang Coin, looking sheepish. I waved. He waved. He came in. He’d just gotten my email asking if he’d gotten the wrong day. He had. He was apologetic, I said –no worries, if I’d finished my coffee, I wouldn’t be here, ‘sall good. I showed him pictures of my house, he told me stories full of longing for Berlin.

Neither of us mentioned dating, each other or other people. He knows already, he keeps up here. I don’t really know, but I don’t feel the need to. It’s fine, either way. Eventually it'll come up, we'll have another few awkward moments, I'll probably well up a little. And then normal will be that he has a girlfriend who is not me, and I will still be dating my house.

I don’t know that we’ll ever be good friends. Maybe. He's not one for making himself vulnerable, and besides laughing, that's what all my strongest friendships are built on - taking care in those moments. But I like him a big whole bunch, and I feel better about that now, with both of us in our right size skins.

I've been single for just shy of three months. The relentless misery of late December and early January is closer and closer to feeling like someone else's relentless misery. I don't really talk - to my friends, to the internet - about Eric or the breakup any more. But there are scraps of sadness, of resentment, of love, of dashed hope, shards of unmitigated anger, all mixed up in a soupy brew of inedible nostalgia simmering under my day-to-day life.

It will be a long time before I forget how much it hurts to have your heart broken.

The simmer has become comfortable enough that most often I don't notice it's going on, hence the general silence. Occasionally, something will turn the heat up under the pot, and I'll boil over a little, maybe, but the heat is lower and lower each time, the occurrences fewer and further between.

I'm moving into the phase where I'm sad that I'm no longer viscerally sad. Where I wonder a bit about the truthfulness of my heart, my propensity for drama. If three months later I can feel this okay, did I really love him as much as I thought I did? If I had really loved him, wouldn't I still be puffy-faced and pulling my lips and tearing out my hair in despair?

Propensity for drama, right.

Poking around in my brainpan dredges this up: I did love him, as well as I could; when in top form, I am able to love people very much, and that is a gift; I could have loved him more and for longer than I was given the chance.

And this: he loved me, as well as he could; he made the right call; I am sometimes still upset he was right, but more often just distantly sad for us both; my life before dating Eric was a generally happy and satisfying place; my life after dating Eric is the same.

And three months is three months.

So turns out the cure for being traumatized when you run into the person who doesn't want you for the first time in two months is to run into him again three days later.

The second time, you tear up but you don't cry.

I'm almost looking forward to the next time. Perhaps I'll crack a joke.

You know, if you've been brokenhearted, but have started to feel more like yourself, have actually managed to have a couple belly laughs in the past few days, and have started to feel the glimmer of a future time, some crazy time, in which someone might actually want you again, might actually want to love you again, well the way to cure that is to run into the person who doesn't want you.

It's an instant tonic, let me tell you, and now I need a cure for my cure.

I had my first post-breakup sex dream last night, which involved an acquaintance of mine and an embarrassing amount of saliva.

Apparently, I am uptight to my core, since I asked said acquaintance if their girlfriend would mind. After finding out things were copacetic on the partner front, I proceeded to have an internal dialogue about whether I was being safe enough. Eventually, I decided to throw dream caution to the wind and go on down, lack of barrier be damned.

So while I wouldn't necessarily say my sex drive was back, it is at least revving a rusty purr. And actively engaging the parts of my brain needed for navigation.

Odd that, since a couple weeks ago, the thought of kissing someone made me feel a little nauseous. Now it's just the thought of dating that does that.

Feels like a mixed blessing, this revival. It's as it should be. As of valentines day, it'll be a couple months since I've had sex. My body is telling me that's getting close to long enough.

I'm not sure my brain is buying it though, and I'm not sure to whom I should listen.

Because my brain is telling me this is somewhat of a betrayal. Of my ex as a real person, certainly, but also the abject sense-memories of my love for him. Of my grief, too. Like my brain thinks the best thing to do is keep the mourning pure, and keep it on, a suffocating hairshirt.

I know, I know, that if I heard my ex were sleeping with someone who was not me, if I found out he was on the make, I would feel bitter, replaced, and so so hurt. Not that anyone ever gets actually replaced. Not that people can't be fucking one person and missing another. Still, some part of me wants to protect him from a projected hurt by not being intimate with someone else. Like that will protect me.

But what can you do. People move on. They have to. Some people maybe do it before they should, some people maybe wait too long. But bodies will call bodies.

The advantage of having major depressive episodes scattered through your teens and twenties is that by your thirties you have a reasonable idea of how to take care of yourself.

Last night would have been my first anniversary with Eric. I knew I would be sad.

I'd been invited to a party - a costume/weight lifting party, no less - which was obviously going to be crazy silly fun. I clicked "attending" figuring I would want the distraction.

But yesterday afternoon rolled around, and I decided I didn't want distracting. The logical step further, then, was to decide that I didn't actually want to talk to anyone. In person, by phone, or email. Not to mope, but, as Ariel so succinctly puts it, to feel my feelings. And to love myself up a little.

Which I did with dinner.

I had a leisurely wander through the Herb and the Hartman's, letting the shopping build anticipation. Made moroccan spiced salmon, steamed kale, and brown rice. Bought myself some fancy sparkly water and some limes to slice. I set the table nice. Put the fish in the oven, took things the logical step further. Got myself glammed up: heels, fishnets, a swingy green dress with a deep vee. I looked good. Good enough that I felt like fucking myself for about 30 seconds until I remembered that my sex drive is hibernating.

My premonition was correct. I was sad. But it wasn't a wasn't a hollow desperate sad. It wasn't even a crying sad. It was melancholy, but satisfying. It was a good way to acknowledge that I can be sad and loving at the same time; that I can be very much alone and not lonely; that I am entirely capable of taking care.

First, the haircut. It fucking rocks. It's super asymmetrical, and my tiny head, which tends to look cartoonishly round, now looks much closer to elegantly oval.

Next, the face. I've had my current glasses for 5 or so years now, and I like them still, but I don't think there's any harm in updating my look. Steve is going to accompany me on a glasses shopping expedition tomorrow. I'll get him to take photos, and if we can't decide between the two of us, I'll post the photos. I find glasses shopping as overwhelming as shopping for sheets. I mean, it's an important decision. It's the first thing people will see about me, whether they notice them or not. I will wear them more than anything else I own for the next half-decade. God. I am filled with dread. I am convinced I will make the wrong decision.

Also, weirdly, I bought make up. I can't even explain that. I went to MAC, where I ended up standing in front of the foundation like a deer in the headlights hoping simultaneously that someone would finally rescue me and hoping that no one would notice me. Someone did rescue me, someone with very purple eyelids, and when I said "UmIdon'treallywearmakeupexceptforsometimesandthenuh." she took a deep breath and peppered me with flummoxing questions like "What do you want your mascara to do?" and "Would you prefer the regular powder or the mineralized powder?" I stood awkwardly around while she swept and painted me, and then I said yes and pulled out my credit card.

Fuck you, heartbreak. Yeah.