Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart

I've talked about how one of the hardest parts of this break-up has been when I'm expecting to be distracted and I'm not. I talked mainly about work situations, but now it's creeping into friend time, too. I'm in Atlanta this week visiting my best friend whom I've known since sixth grace (picture matching baby-doll dresses and sunflower hats ala Clueless). She's going through a divorce, and she's starting to figure out her new life. I hate that it's happening to her--and that I'm going through this break-up--but thank God for a friend who really gets it.

The difference, though, is that she sees where things went wrong, and I really don't. I'm still so confused about all of it. We're not angry at each other. We don't hate each other. We didn't cheat, steal, or lie. How did things fall apart? When?

My friend was having computer troubles, and after many different tries, I couldn't get it to work, so I left SCL a message to see if he had any ideas. Now, this was only the second time I've contacted him since the break-up. I wouldn't have done it had my friend not been really desperate to fix it without having to spend oodles of money at Geek Squad who probably wouldn't have helped her anyway (and SCL has made me so anti-Geek Squad or anything of the like that I couldn't stand the idea of her going there.)

When he called back, I told him that I'd figured it out but thanks for calling. We chatted for a few minutes. It felt fine, normal. I hung up feeling fine. Later that afternoon, after doing some online apartment hunting for my friend, I felt exhausted, mopey, and needed some space. So I listened to some Alicia Keys (hence the title of this blog) and rested. But I couldn't get thoughts of our broken relationship out of my head: what happened between us? What went wrong?

After sharing a French-like dinner with my friend and watching the Sex and the City movie, I was exhausted and decided to go to bed, but not without first checking my email and facebook. I should've known better, but I logged into chat and saw SCL's name there. I don't know if it was the sparkling wine we'd had or what, but I sent him a message saying "good night." He wrote back "good night." Then I felt all of the emotion, the hurt, the pain rise up in me. I wanted to tell him everything, I wanted him to tell me everything, I wanted to be us again.

I resisted for the most part. I did say that it was hard not to say more and that I missed him. And he replied "I'm sorry." Not "I miss you, too." Not "This is hard for me, too." Just "I'm sorry." What are you sorry for? Sorry that I'm not over this? Sorry that you've put me through this? Sorry that you did this to me? What does "I'm sorry" mean?

Before it went any further, I shut my laptop, curled up in bed, and cried for an hour at least. I sobbed. The pain felt as raw and deep as it did nearly three weeks ago. Now that the shock has worn off, the hurt is really setting in, and I'm having more difficulty remembering that pain is normal, pain isn't crisis. That all sounds like bullshit to me right now. It's easy to say that in the first few days, but as the weeks go by and it's still hurting so much, I wonder if this is normal and if I'm ever going to get over it.

Part of me still wants my old life back, and that part of me of hates SCL for taking it from me.

A Day of Being with Just Me

Monday was the first day I'd had since the break-up that I didn't have any kind of external distraction to get me out of the house. No briefing, no happy hour, no meeting friends for dinner. I did pretty well during the day--got lots of good work done, did laundry,worked out, and wrote an article for work. But when I got to be about dinner time, I began to feel a little anxious. After eating something I decided just to go out to my favorite hangout Marshall's (love discounted designer clothes), but as I was getting ready to go, I stopped. Why am I doing this?

Was going shopping another substitute, something to fill the void inside me? I knew I'd probably end up buying a bunch of random stuff, and just like stuffing my face, I knew I'd feel like shit afterwards. So I said no. Instead I got my stuff together, put on a bit of make-up and went to the public library. I perused the aisles, read a few inside corners. I took my time and slowed down, stopping to look at whatever seemed interesting.

One of the most noticeable differences I've experienced since the break-up is a new calmness, an ease with myself and with others (not including tourists). I don't know where it's coming from, but I attribute it to grace.

While at the at the library, I picked up the latest Psychology Today. There was an article called "The Expectations Trap" about the expectations we place on marriage in this culture. We expect it to satisfy all of our emotional needs, and when we're unhappy with anything in our lives, we find a way, either consciously or unconsciously, of attributing it to a lacking in our partner...and we justify that emotional discontent as a reason to give up and walk away. Rather than adjusting or accepting, we reject. It sounded so much like where SCL had been coming from that I printed him a copy of it.

But it's also something I need to pay attention to. I'm never going to find myself in another person. I have to do that on my own.

Do-Over Please: Encounter with Former College Roommate aka "Little Miss Perfect"

Last night there was a big alumni event for my college with about 300 people in attendance. A few months ago I'd gotten tickets for SCL and I to go, and I was really looking forward to it. It's always fun to show off the beautiful boyfriend to friends you haven't seen in awhile. But of course, things never work out the way I think they will.

Our alumni office is brilliant for many reasons, one of which is that when people register to attend an alumni event, they publish the names on an online attendee list. Back in February I was scanning the list and was shocked, horrified, and somewhat thrilled to see my freshman and sophomore year roommate's name on the list.

Let me give you a little background on this woman. She's a fucking blonde bombshell with huge (real) boobs, an hourglass figure, and perfect teeth. Do you all hate her already? She and I were actually good friends for the first year of our living together until she met her boyfriend, a senior hunky baseball player (now her husband), at a jungle-themed frat party and decided he'd be our third roommate. How fun for me, right? Things deteriorated, and we rarely spent time together after we both studied abroad in Florence our junior year. Despite this fact, I thought that after all the crap I put up with those two, I should have at least been invited to their grandiose wedding the summer after we graduated. Seriously, it was the least they could do after a year and a half of Three's Company in our tiny dorm room. I wasn't invited, and even though we weren't really friends anymore, I felt totally dissed and my feelings were hurt.

So a few weeks ago when I saw that she was coming to this event, I thought, "This is a great time to see her. I've really got my shit together now. I've got my ivy league degree, my awesome consultant job, and my beautiful boyfriend." I don't know why I even care about her--or that I thought she would give a rat's ass about what I was doing now. But for some reason she serves as a source of self-doubt and lack of confidence for me even to this day. I think it's because she at least has the appearance of having her life together. She married the first man she slept with, has a flawless face and figure, has lots of money, a wonderful family, and a great job as a lobbyist. Even in college, when the rest of us were packing on the pounds from pizza and beer, she maintained her svelte figure by eating broccoli in the cafeteria and doing leg lifts before going to bed. (She had seriously disordered eating, and I was one of the few people she told about it.) The college boys drooled over her and pursued her. Our first week we had a mixer with a guys' freshman hall, and one of them, whose father owned part of a professional baseball team, hired a magician for her because it was her birthday and hoped to woo her. Meanwhile I was crushing on a dorky sophomore who after I confessed I liked him told me "I'm not ready for a relationship right now" and then two weeks later started dating my friend. Seriously, FML.

Yesterday before I had to leave to go to the event, I was crying. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to see her and her fucking perfect self. But I put myself together as best I could, struggling over the perfect outside to impress her with, and went. I ran into her on the way in. She gave me a big hug. And y'all, she looked EXACTLY the same (except for a few deep wrinkles around her eyes which secretly gave me great joy. Should've stayed away from those tanning beds, babe!). "How's DC?" she asked. I told her all about my new job and how fab it is to work from home, trying to play up how great life is. "Where are you living?" I told her and then she asked, "By yourself?"

Now let's just stop here. Why in the HELL couldn't I have just said "Yes, by myself"? Because I'm a big doof, that's way. Instead of using that filter of mine that usually accompanies me in social settings, I say, "Well, I used to live with my boyfriend, but we just broke up." "Oh, I'm so sorry, " she said. And I think she really was. But I felt like an idiot. Why would I tell someone I'm not even friends with about the biggest pain of my life right now? I don't know why I did it. I felt like an idiot afterward. We chatted for a few minutes and said "see you inside", but we never said good-bye to each other. She, not surprisingly, didn't stay for the whole thing. I'm sure she had some fucking fantastic gala or other A-list event to get to. Secretly, I was relieved not to have to interact with her again.

This morning I'm still thinking about it, still beating myself up over it. Why did I have to open my mouth? Because I'm human, that's why. Because I'm not perfect. Because right now I'm an emotional mess and hurting. And even though I see her as perfect, I know that she's just a person like me. She might be better at concealing her humanness, but that doesn't change the fact that she is still a human being. And what I do know about her is that in order to maintain that image of perfection, she never takes risks. I remember how she used to back out of things, not put herself in a situation where she might fail. She did what was easy, comfortable, and least embarrassing, and frankly, that's not the kind of life I want to live.

I'm not blonde. I don't have big boobs or blue eyes. I don't have the perfect man by my side. But I take risks. I put myself out there all the time, and I get hurt. I'm hurting like hell right now. But I know that I am really living my life, not standing by as opportunities go by, too scared to take chance. And deep down I know that I'm pretty awesome all on my own.

Sassy New Single Life

Most--ok, all--of my posts over the last two weeks have been about the break-up. I figure this is probably to be expected, but that you'll probably all start losing interest in my emotional drama as it relates to SCL. And I'll probably get tired of writing about it. I'm not saying I'm going to shut up about it completely (it's currently my muse; I have so much to say!), but I will try to balance it with my new life as a sassy single girl. So, here's a run down of what good things are happening in this single woman's life.

This break-up has been great for my waistline. Like a lot of women in relationships, I started packing on the pounds when SCL and I got together. The eating out, making lots of pizza, and our collective sweet teeth really did a number on my body. It didn't help that he hated working out and didn't really like exercising with me. Like a lot of other things, I let my health slide. But now that I'm in need of every pick-me-up I can get, including endorphins, I find myself in the gym everyday and really enjoying it for the most part. My real focus is no to lose weight (though that's a nice side effect), but because it feels so damn good. I'd forgotten. And I've lost about five pounds in the process. Not too shabby.

I'm doing the things that feel like me. In addition to eating better and working out, I'm reading a lot of fun books (never read Bridget Jones's Diary before; I know!), spending more time having drinks with friends, going back to church, and generally being my normal social self. I'd let myself get confined to the routine of hanging out with SCL in the evenings and on the weekends. Now I have all of this time, and many more things I want to do with it.

I'm reconnecting with my spiritual side. Although SCL and I met in divinity school, he's not a religious person, and he wasn't too enthusiastic about going to church. But I am a deeply spiritual person and view the world through a theological lens most of the time. I'd been missing that part of me, especially living in DC where I am constantly having to adapt to speaking politics instead of religion. Now that I'm going to church and getting to know people there, I feel more at home and more like myself. My prayer every morning: "Grace to get me through the day."

I'm having a good ass time. I thought that becoming more predictable was just part of growing up, but I realize that it was just that I'd become kind of a boring person. SCL and I had good times together, but excitement was not a big part of our relationship. We fell into a rut and ended up spending a lot of Friday nights eating homemade pizza, drinking wine, and watching a movie. Nothing wrong with that except that I need to go out, dance, and see other human beings sometimes. Now there's nothing holding me back! I've been out with friends late at night, I've been trying new restaurants, biking to new places, catching up with old college friends, got signed up for kickball. I'm cutting down on the stuffy networking events and upping my fun intake for the time being. Time to live it up.

Here's the truth: While I'm sad about the loss of my relationship, I'm not unhappy. I thought I would be miserable for months and months, and instead I often feel liberated, alive, and more like myself. Maybe this will end up being the best thing for me.

Life/God/Universe, you are a funny, funny thing.

A Public Affair

This Friday SCL and I had our first interaction in a public setting since the break-up. I was performing in a community production, and he came to see me. I saw him before the show and really wasn't phased by him being there, even when I was on stage. But when the show was over, that was when everything shifted.

He was there, waiting for me--to give me a hug, to congratulate me on a job well done. And it felt so normal for him to be there. In some ways I felt more supported and loved than I did when we were together. All of the feelings of comfort, familiarity, and support felt so good to me. I looked around and thought, what do the people in this room think of us? What does this look like? I knew the answer: it looked like we were a couple, a partnership, a team. And for the first time in many days, I wanted that again. In that moment I didn't care about all the ways he'd hurt me, how much pain he'd caused me, that he didn't communicate or affirm me. I wanted his familiarity back. I wanted his presence back. I wanted the life I'd grown accustomed to back.

We walked back to the Metro, rode back to our stop side-by-side, and walked back to our apartment hand-in-hand. "This is hard," I said. "I feel like we're together right now. This feels so normal." There was something quite different about being outside of the apartment together that made it feel like we were just as we were before all of this happened, when I still thought all was well, when I believed it was just a matter of time before he came around and decided he truly wanted me.

I cried and cried. Then I worried that if I continued crying SCL would think I couldn't handle this, that we couldn't see each other at all anymore. That we couldn't navigate a new way of handling this pain and transformation in our relationship. He held me as I cried. And as he held me, I felt completely alone. Yes, we were together physically, even touched each other, but I knew that he wasn't going to give me his heart. And I felt so horribly alone. I thought about how if he hadn't come to my performance, I wouldn't have had anyone there who knew me to say, "You were great up there." What loss to consider and to mourn.

He was the reason I was crying, and yet he was comforting me. But who else would? I can't comfort myself, can I? I can't hold myself, stroke my own head, pull me against my own chest, wrap myself up in my own embrace. And that place in his arms--that has been my place for so long. On Friday I still wanted it to be mine.

Eventually I put myself together and went to bed. Mostly I was worried that he'd think he needed to pull away, and I didn't want him to make yet another decision about what was really best for me, for us. I still want to try this new way of breaking up. Sometimes it's just really hard to be this strong.

Break Up Blues: Music That's Helping Me Get Through

Anyone who has gone through a break-up probably understands the importance of the Break-Up playlist (oh, modern technology, how I love thee, how we are no longer confined to the mix-tape or CD). For me, I've got about six playlists so far that range from "Melanchology" to "I'm OK' to "Woman Power" to "The Healing Room." Here are a few tunes that are quickly becoming my go-to songs. Many lists to come in the future!

1. Ciara's "I Found Myself" from The Evolution

Why I Love it: Introspective, mournful, but also about moving forward and learning from love that has been lost.

What Playlist It's On: "I'm OK"

Best line:

So long, farewell

My lifes moving forward.

My ship has sailed,

And I'm so glad it's over.

My heart mends well,

After all that I've been through

I found myself.

2. Kelly Clarkson, "Don't Let Me Stop You" from All I Ever Wanted

Why I Love it: It's about reclaiming one's power by letting go, not begging your love to stay if what he really wants to do is go on and pursue other things...and other women.

What Playlist(s) It's On: "Woman Power" "I'm OK"

Best line:

Even if I end up broken-hearted/

I won't lie.

I don't want to hear goodbye/

But either way I'll be alright.

3. Sara Bareilles, "Love on the Rocks" from Little Voice

Why I Love It: She embodies all the mixed emotions of a break-up, especially the far-fetched hope that she can still patch things up. It reminds me of John Legend's "Ordinary People," a song I cannot listen to right not because he was an artist I shared with SCL. Don't you hate that?

What Playlist It's On: "F*** Love"

Best line:

Here's a simplification of everything we're going though/

You plus me is bad news.

But you're a lovely creation and I like to think that I am too/

But my friend said I look better without you.

4. KT Tunstall "Heal Over" from Eye to the Telescope

Why I Love It: It's the most soothing song, almost a lullaby for girls with broken hearts. And it reminds me that the pain isn't going to last forever.

What Playlist(s) It's On: "I'm OK" and "The Healing Room"

Best line:

Doesn't take a genius to realize/

That sometimes life is hard.

It's gonna take time/

But you'll just have to wait

You're gonna be fine/

But in the meantime/

Come over here lady/

Let me wipe your tears away.

5. Nora Jones "I Wouldn't Need You" from The Fall

Why I Love It: Heart-breaking in the most cathartic way. Plus I love her soulful voice.

What Playlist It's On: "Melancholy"

Best line:

If I touched myself the way you touched me.

If I could hold myself the way you held me.

Then I wouldn't need you, no, I wouldn't need you,

No, I wouldn't need you to love me.

There are many others, but I'm curious if you all have favorite songs that lift your spirits, are good for a cry, or help you say "f*** love." Please send 'em my way!

What Exactly Happened Between Us: Part 2, The Confessions

Are you all ready for Part 2? Here we go.

After the bawling and crying subsided (the sort of crying I was doing could realistically only have lasted 15 minutes max. Otherwise I’d have passed out from sheer exhaustion) and SCL admitted that he really hadn't thought the whole "I want to end our relationship through" (Note: then WTF are you saying it? Don’t you realize that this is the MEANEST THING YOU COULD DO TO ME?), I really wanted to understand what was going on with him. Where was all of this coming from? So I put on my compassionate partner hat and listened.

Now I have to confess something. I am not perfect. Shocking, I know! Back in the fall I did something really stupid. I read SCL’s journal. It was a desperate, albeit pathetic and invasive, attempt to understand what was going on in his head when I suspected his heart wasn’t totally in the relationship. (Maybe I should've just thought of ending it then rather than invading his privacy. The fact that I felt his heart wasn't in the right place would have been reason to say that I was done.) The snooping is not something I’m proud of. And here’s the thing about snooping: whatever you find, you can’t say anything about. It’s pretty much the worst idea in the world unless you by chance happen to find something really great that affirms your relationship. Do not count on this ever happening. In my case, I found just the opposite. I saw the negative side, the dark side, the doubting side, and while I didn’t want to believe it, it was right there in front of me.

Eventually the guilt overtook me and I confessed to SCL that I’d done it. He was FURIOUS with me and rightfully so. I broke his trust, and I really felt like shit about it for months. I gingerly brought up some of the things he wrote, but he obviously didn’t feel like he needed to answer me. I had invaded his trust, and what right did I have to question anything he said? So, I let it go. I tried to forget about it. I never brought up anything I had read.

So, when he told me the night of our "why are we living together" conversation that he’d read my journal, things changed. First, I didn’t really care that he'd done it. I think it’s fantastic that someone would actually find me interesting enough to actually to take the time to read my journal (clearly I am affirmed by this; I’m a blogger who writes about my life and gets excited every single time there’s a new follower!) It was fair that he’d done it, I guess. I’d broken his trust, why shouldn’t he break mine? It was at that point that I thought to myself, to hell with it. I really didn’t care anymore about pretending I didn’t read what he wrote. I wanted the truth. He was being brutally honest about everything else. Our relationship was going down the toilet in front of my eyes, so I had to just go for it. This was my chance.

“Is this about her?” I asked. “Her” being the girl I read about in the pages of his journal, the girl of his past, the girl he seemed to still be thinking about, the one whose pedestal I knew I’d never quite reach.

“No,” he said.

I asked again, “Is this about her?” I asked. “Have you been talking to her?”

And then it came. “Yes. She wrote me yesterday.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to go find this stupid girl and give her a piece of my mind. I wanted to scream at SCL, “GET OVER IT ALREADY! SHE IS A FANTASY! NO WOMAN WILL EVER LIVE UP TO THE ILLUSION IN YOUR MIND!” Instead, I listened. I asked questions. And for the very first time in our entire relationship, I truly felt SCL was being honest with me. He let me see the note she wrote, a letter that pissed me off with its façade of trying to be respectful of the fact that he was in a serious relationship with me—but also making it a point to say that she still has feelings for him. Don’t even kid me with that line, sister. Women know these things, and she knew what those words would do—they would give him hope that she still loves him, too.

After he’d told me more about her and how he felt, I told him that the way I saw it he had three choices.

1) Cut off all contact with her.

2) Try to have some kind of normal friendship with her (i.e. let me meet me, see that she is a normal person with flaws and everything.)

3) Dump me and go pursue a relationship with her.

Of course I’d hoped he wouldn’t choose the last, but I couldn’t deny it was a choice he could make.

Let me just say I don’t think this woman was the cause of our break-up. Not that it helped. But I do think that SCL’s inability/unwillingness/whatever to let her go was a barrier to him truly loving me and committing to me. I can’t blame her for that. That’s his burden to bear. We all have baggage; this is some of his.

I'm wondering how other women would react to hearing something like this—that she is second best in my man's heart. Honestly I sort of felt good because FINALLY he was sharing with me openly. Emotional stuff aside, in the moment I took it as a step toward real honesty between us and a way to begin rebuilding our relationship on a solid foundation of trust. Maybe I should’ve known better. But I will say that I did everything I could, including being there for him as he admitted his love(?)/feelings for another woman, to be a supportive, loving, compassionate partner no matter what. I thought we could work through even this as long as we were honest and communicated. I didn’t think it was the end of us, but rather a new beginning. I wanted it to be. And deep down I truly believe it could’ve been if that’s what he had wanted.

That's what hurts the most--that I was such a loving, caring, compassionate partner, that I was willing to help him work through even this and whatever else came up, and he still didn't want me anymore. What a loss for him, I know. But it's also a huge loss for me, too--to have my love rejected like that. I know, I know what you're all thinking. But let me just quote Kelly Clarkson and say"That's how I feel right now/ So just let me be."