Day 146
When Nate and I broke up my senior year of college, I spent my loneliest nights in my car, parked at the Mississinewa River. There I would smoke cigarettes and write bad poetry, wail Damien Jurado songs (“Go First”) and cry. Those were painful days, all 59 of them.
Tonight I left my house at 9 pm and started walking. I pulled out the pack of cigarettes I bought soon after Nate and I broke up (my transitional object) and blasted my breakup mix on repeat.
I feel too paralyzed to even write this, though I know I should. I’ve learned that writing is the way I get over crushes and boyfriends. It’s how I make sense of heartbreak; I turn chaos into narrative.
I’ve been thinking about this breakup season as a series of movements. The first movement should have been the hardest. So many things ended so abruptly. I had to move. I had to live somewhere new. I had to find someone else to talk to when I was upset. I had to figure out what being a single person meant. I had to change my relationship status on Facebook (!) and decide what to do with all the photos of us. All these things.
The second movement was denial. I was sad but still so full of hope that maybe Nate will change his mind. Maybe he will realize how great I am (because, really, I’m a catch). This season (July and August) was so confusing–because Nate made it so. One of my friends at some point told me–geez, I wish he would just leave you alone. And another, he’s not holding up his end of the breakup. And all that is true, and all of that is not satisfying. I wanted him to stay away insofar as I could try to move on. But on the other hand, I wanted him to stick around, keep texting me, keep suggesting we get coffee or drinks, keep calling me when he’s sad and vulnerable. Because maybe he will see my faithfulness and that will mean something to him, dammit. (What a mess, I know.)
The third movement was beautiful. I had my first post-Nate crush. I indulged in hope (and maybe a bit of illusion). I became ambitious. I listened to my desire and let her lead me places.
And then I crashed.
I think of my third movement as having the desire to move forward and past this relationship, but without a lot of action attached to it. I had a crush, but wasn’t dating.
This fourth movement is action without a lot of desire attached to it. My desire, like in movement two, is back in Interbay in my flannel sheets with Nate and episodes of Seinfeld. I have only a little nugget of desire to move forward. (That nugget will just have to do.)
I’m going on a date next week. I’m terrified. I’m mostly scared that I’m going to like him, this guy, or any other guy I meet. That I will start moving on. Part of me is just still so convinced Nate is the one I should be with, and how dare I move on. How dare I find a better match. This narrative that I’ve constructed about Nate and me, I want that one to last. I’m not over it yet. I put too much into it.
*
I’ve been thinking about lament and where to channel my anger. I’ve been channeling it at myself, I think, more than anyone else. I’m scared to be mad at Nate because I don’t think he can handle it. (And by handle it, I think I mean not be crushed by it or resent me for it.) I’m scared to be mad at God because God feels like my only chance at getting back with Nate; I don’t want to piss God off. (I fall back on really childish theologies.)
I heard once that you can’t really lament with someone you don’t have a relationship with. You can’t call God out on something if you don’t believe God owes you something–I mean, at least an ounce of clarity. The good news, I guess, is that people have been lamenting to God for centuries and God has handled it alright. So I’ve given it a shot.
“You have taken from me my closest friends [my lover]
And have made me repulsive to them [him]
I am confined [in my thoughts] and cannot escape;
my eyes are dim with grief [and tears]
…
You have taken my friend and my neighbor [my lover]–
Darkness is my closest friend.” –Ps. 88
*
Lord, have mercy.
November 2, 2014