I am coming upon 4 weeks since I have broken up with my significant other. A full month of limited and only absolutely necessary contact (maybe it’s happened twice – once via text and once via email). There are songs, poems, memes, and quotes about the most obvious parts of the journey after a break-up. There’s the incessant crying, sadness, and fear of being alone, blah, blah, blah. There’s even the anger and resentment which come bubbling up above the surface of said incessant sadness (which I’m not convinced I’ve felt fully yet). But what no one really knows how to describe or discuss is how incredibly skewed one’s perception of oneself and one’s partner is or becomes through this process of being together and then eventually coming apart. There are key moments I return to in the past and wonder if I compromised too much of myself? Or, I wonder, did what I think was happening, actually happening? I have impeccable instincts and can read situations well – where did all this go during my relationship? Did the feelings I held for him, the same he held for me? In what moments did I miss the message that this was just not meant to be? What were the key moments that should have been very large sounding alarms? I go through my box of memories, pick out each instance I doubted myself, and wondered, maybe I should have ran with whatever gut instinct I had?
However, as a woman who runs from vulnerability, my gut is to always just fold over and keep pushing through any difficulties or conflict. My gut is to reason, not to feel. My gut is to try to hash it out, try to resolve it, because I am a human being that believes anything can logically can be reasoned AND that almost anything can be resolved. I can adjust a little, you can adjust a little, and ta da, we make it work. Nothing is impossible. Even when the odds are against me – I still have faith in the tiniest of possibilities. But, what no one explained (or I haven’t read as extensively as I should) is that other people aren’t built that way. Although that seems ultimately quite obvious, it’s unlikely that in the partnership I sought to commit myself to, I chose someone who was my near opposite. He felt deeply but could communicate that only scarcely throughout the conflict. It was only much later in our trying to figure out what was going on that I splurged and brought on the water works. Now, don’t get me wrong, as a woman who for the past two years in her relationship has also been getting her PhD, experimenting with different birth control pills, and figuring out how many part-time gigs allow her to bring home enough money to pay the bills, I have had my fair opportunities to cry and cry a lot on my partner’s chest. But, it’s at those moments of tension and conflict, where the tears could not often be found. Maybe that’s because I believed we could get through hard shit. Maybe that’s how I knew we were coming apart, unraveling at the ends, because towards the end, all I did when we fought was cry and reach out for him. Maybe that was the point at which I knew I lost all reason, and was not following any sense of true reality. Or, perhaps, I hoped someone could see the pain I had been enduring and could thus then understand my response to life at those particular junctures as a result of that stress? Or, perhaps, my hopes had made me temporarily delusional?
I was talking to someone the other day about me and my ex’s communication styles and how difficult it was to engage in conversation during conflict or issues of concern. During that conversation, this person asked me what is one specific and important aspect of a partner I’m looking for that this partnership taught me I needed to have. I told him I couldn’t begin to answer this question because since leaving this relationship, I have just started a journey back to myself. Since becoming single once again, I have begun to explore all those things I didn’t have time for (or didn’t make time for) and I feel like a really different woman. I have found a person willing to indulge her feelings at any point in the day and succumb to them. I refuse to put on a face when I feel so broken and that’s a new process for me. Also, I have found time. Yes, time for whatever I want to do, whenever the fuck I want to do it, without having to inform anyone of anything or coordinate my schedule according to another. It has been especially freeing for me to see all my evenings returned to me. I know this is as a result of my particular juncture in my PhD program where I’ve taken a break from doing any academic work. (I’m hoping to get back to it as soon as the semester comes to a close.)
As sad as some evenings may feel, as an introvert, I can’t express my happiness at being alone again, but like truly alone, no partner in my life is a different kind of alone than when I was alone and with partner. My brain feels relinquished of a worry or concern – which makes me wonder, is that how bad it had gotten? Or, is it that that kind of commitment, requires the thought of another in such a way that deteriorates any semblance of sanity and focus (i.e. love makes us crazy)? Almost everyday I write, sometimes it’s about my loss and others it’s just about my day. So, when this person asked this question of me, all I could say in response was, I think it’s hard for me to determine an answer when I’m trying to figure out what it is I need from myself. I need time to decipher what it is that I need to give to myself in order to live a full life before I say what it is that someone else can provide me. I promise you, I tried to find an answer, but I think that’s where all this returns back to the beginning. I am again lost, trying to make sense of the world I inhabit and live. My past perceptions of that world and myself have shifted greatly and I’m just hoping to gain some sense of grounding soon. But, I’m also going to be patient with myself, because “not all who wander are lost.” Some of us are very intentionally wandering and trying to enjoy that journey. I secretly believe the added Vitamin D and summer fun will find me a beautiful path to wherever…
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