Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I found out that my "long-term" high school boyfriend was cheating on me, I cried in bed for a week. Not just boo-hoo, sniffle-sniffle dab away the tears crying either; I'm talking full out, hardcore, shake the foundations wailing. It's likely the neighbors suspected that I was having something amputated right there in my room. Of course, my parents still made me go to school. They never did understand what all the fuss was about. But the reality of it was that I was never in my life going to be able to trust anyone (with whom I was not sharing an allele) the same way again, and I knew it. In fact, so much of what I am today can be traced back to that very violation.
Drama, drama, drama!
Crying your face off in High School and wearing all black for a few weeks is one thing, but crying like a banshee when you're older and you're supposed to know better is a different species entirely. Now you not only feel dejected and all-around horrible, the sting of failure your only true companion, but you have the pleasure of repeated kicks originating from your own foot because goddamnit you should have known better. You remember what happened last time, hell you never forgot. But here you are going through it again. What a jackass you are. How could you have let this happen?
For a while, you will eat tons of ice cream and make historically bad decisions (such as insisting that having a certain parties heat, water, and cable turned off is warranted). But even in the thick of the self deprecating bonanza, part of you knows that you will live to love again. However, that same part knows that loving again only leaves you vulnerable to more of the same heartbreak. This inevitably leads to more wailing.
Personally, I never set out to be a serial monogamist, it's just the way things have kinda panned out thusfar. And it's fine, really, because let's face it, I'd be terrible at the dating thing. I don't know how you people do it, to be honest. Just all that smiling alone, uch. Unconscionable.
Which leads me to the only remaining option; alone time. Blessed, blessed alone time.
True -- it might not feel like such a blessing at first, but after a while one can really come to appreciate the sublime nature of their own company. The pleasure of knowing that items you placed somewhere will remain in that spot until you, and you alone, move them. The pleasure of full remote control. The pleasure that comes from knowing how to make your own sandwiches exactly the way you want them and catching up on all your correspondence.
Of course, with this newfound solitude comes the daunting fact that if you can't find something, you have no one else to blame but yourself. You and only you lost your glasses. Or the remote. Or both (ha, then you're really screwed). You and only you ate a pint of Haagen Dasz every night and you and only you now have 4 giant asscheeks to show for it.
It's taken me a lifetime to figure out just some of the nuances of the relationship between loyalty and heartbreak, a lifetime just to scratch the surface of what will and what won't work for me, and if not for the headstart I had (and the emergency escape ladder I built) in High School then who knows how far down the pit of despair I'd be capable of climbing. In a truly twisted way I guess I'm thankful for the early lessons, as I'd hate to be learning now what I learned then. Watching someone you love (who was not innoculated until his late LATE 20's) go through it isn't easy, either; imagine finding out that everything you thought to be right was wrong --and you never even knew you were supposed to be questioning it?
Heartbreak and chickenpox at this late state could both be fatally devastating.
When all is said and done, I've come to realize that the alone time is the exact opposite of the initial violation. It is the yin to the yang of transgression; a time to build yourself up. To get to know what it is that you truly want. Not only so you'll know it when you see it, but so you'll know it when you don't see it, too. You owe it to yourself if for no other reason than no one else is capable of doing it for you.
So I raise my remote control to you, the staggering 51% of women (and who can say how many men) who "choose" to remain single; you go girls and boys! Revel in your freedom!
Just watch it with the ice cream.
13 comments:
Ummm....
personally, I don't think we've seen the last of those hysterical, shaken, weepy moments. I was there through some of those in high school, as you were there through mine - and it doesn't matter because every heartbreak is different, and with every person that gets a little ways into our inner sanctum we find another way to cry. Recently I spent 3 days curled up in a ball weeping (shaking, crying, convulsing) because my best friend stopped talking to me for 3 days... but on a happier, healthier note, we learn. Through all the hell i've (we've) been through, each hell has brought a valuable lesson and from each I have come closer to understanding what I want, and sometimes more important than that, what I don't want and even more important than that, is the "wholly unnacceptable" line. this is the magic happy line. this line makes the rest of your life easy, because once you know what is wholly unacceptable, you start narrowing down the cacophany of losers much, much quicker. I had a button on Jr. High that said this so much better: "You have to fuck a lot of frogs in order to find a prince" For those suffering, takeit from someone who used to call herself "The Emotional Masochist" it gets better because we mlearn how, with time, to make it better.
Note: I appreciate the concern (in all forms from emails and west coast phonecalls to CNM's "Ummm....")but B and I are fine. We're like peas and carrots. =)
This posting was for someone else.
I enjoyed reading this.
Heh thanks for the clarification down at the end..
I personally think that it doesn't matter when it happens. Usually sucks just the same.... once you have invested your heart and soul, there's no turning back.
So are you going to become the next Carrie Bradshaw or something? :)
I love you my darling baby bear!
I figure there were, honestly. I mean, just read what petercho said.
I love this post! I think each heartbreak is unique, but the benefit of experience is that we know time will heal. In high school I remember feeling like I would never be able to get over that longing. Now I know that as painful as it is, time marches cruelly on and takes some of the pain.
sometimes i just wanna reach out and hug people in this situation..cuz i've so been there. other times i just wanna shake them and say "snap out of it...you are better off." then again, hindsight is 20/20. so just settle for some fun rebound sex ;-)
I seem to be enjoying the alone time more and more the older I get; it's harder to bounce back.
Having gone through the last such violent crying jag a couple of months ago that I hope to experience relative to a particular situation, I've move into the "Building self up for real" stage, which is quite different from the months of the "frenetic forced activity to attempt to forget individual whose children you fully intended to bear" stage. It all sucks, really, but it just happens sometimes, and I'm actually enjoying my aloneness, the vast majority of the time. It's way better than waiting for that other shoe to drop, if that's the way things are going to go.
Great post! You perfecly sum up the reasons I enjoy being single. :)
I keep trying to explain the benefits of being single to my perpetually single friends. I think they think I'm just trying to make them feel better, but then I ask them the last time they had to watch a Nascar race. Because I had to watch one all too recently. Or when they last got to eat the last piece of pizza. Because I can't even remember that. Or if they have to negotiate eating (what, when, where) EVERY day. It's just ridiculous.
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