Dumped, Stage 4

It's going to get harder before it gets easier.

Yesterday wasn't bad.  I did wake up full clothed from the day before.  I did wander my house aimlessly at some points.  I did smell terrible and choose not to shower.  But I didn't cry.  At least I didn't cry.

This morning, not so much.

I have only been awake for two hours today, and already I want to go back to sleep.  I got up early to go for my usual morning walk (before it gets too hot) but immediately lost motivation.  Well, not immediately, exactly.

B and I were supposed to go to Tennessee this coming weekend, and when I made plans for the trip, I made the reservation non-refundable because it was cheaper and I thought why in the world would we need to cancel the trip?  I'm afraid to say that B has confirmed one of my worst-held relationship fears: that good things can't last.

When we broke up (ahem, when he broke up with me), he offered to pay for the hotel even though he wouldn't be coming.  To which I said, "I don't want your money!"  And then everyone I talked to was like, "Take that bastard's money."  So then I texted him later and said, "I don't want all the money!"  To which my friends said, "He deserves to pay."  So then I texted him and said, "If you pay for it, I won't refuse."

He promised to get me the money by today, and sure enough, I woke up at 6:45 this morning to my alarm and a text message from him telling me to check our agreed-upon drop spot (under a mat) because it was cash.  I went there immediately and found an unmarked envelope with cash in it.  80%.  He'd paid for 80%.  I'm still wondering if that's a metaphor.

On the one hand, I'm glad he didn't pay the whole thing.  I've never been one to mooch (unless it's off my parents and it's food), and making him pay for a trip he wouldn't have any part in seemed wrong.

On the other hand, he had every opportunity to tell me how he felt BEFORE I reserved the hotel.  And he chose instead to be a coward.

I'm trying to be the bigger person here, though.  So instead of texting him obscenities or punching him in the face, both of which I'd love to do, I put a note under the mat yesterday that I knew he would see when he dropped off the money.  It said:

I just wish you'd told me sooner.

                         Take care,
                            R


Because the truth is that I'm just really sad.  My anger isn't justified.  Not really.  He finally told me how he felt, and it kept me from being in a one-sided relationship.  It kept me from wasting my time.  The anger is just an attempt at sanity.  An attempt to feel something other than sadness.  An attempt to vilify the other just to avoid having to be alone with myself.

As an educator, I've taught many students whose parents were either divorced or in the process of divorcing.  And sometimes those parents hate each other so much that they refuse to speak to one another.  They schedule separate parent-teacher conferences, and they request copies of things to be sent to each home so that they don't have to get the information from their former spouse.  As someone who hasn't been divorced, but only dumped after three months of dating, I'm not privy to the feelings that these people face in their daily lives.  I won't pretend that I do.  I hope I never do.  I can only say that this experience has left me wondering if maybe divorcees hate each other not so much because the other person is actually worth hating, but rather because they're angry that they couldn't make it work.  They resent the other person for not trying hard enough.  Or for trying too hard.  And then that feeling just sticks.  Or maybe, like me, they're just angry because it helps them keep sadness at bay.  From wondering where they went wrong.

This morning, on my walk, I passed probably twenty people on the sidewalk, and each time we made eye contact and said hello, I smiled.  It was, of course, a fake smile each time because I feel about as far away from smiling as a normal, mentally-healthy person can be.  And they gave me a smile back.  Fake?  I don't know.  But it got me to thinking: what is going on in these people's lives?  Did that man that just passed me lose his father yesterday?  Did that woman that was standing near the museum just find out she's unexpectedly pregnant?  People go through terrible and difficult events in their lives all the time, but they still wake up and endure the heat because they have to.  Because the only thing worse than being sad is not living at all.

Yesterday, I looked up the stages of grief in an attempt to better understand where I'm at in my healing process.  I recognize that this is both very nerdy and overly rational of me, but I'm an intellectual person, and I needed something to distract me from what I was feeling for just a few seconds.  Please, just a few seconds of peace.

It turns out that psychologists generally recognize five stages of grief.  They are:
1. Denial/isolation
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

As I read over the descriptions for the first three stages last night, I thought to myself: Yes, I've felt these.  I've been sad.  I've been angry.  I've wondered what we could've done differently to avoid breaking up.  But as I read, I wondered if I'd bypassed depression.  If I was already on my way to acceptance.  I'd chosen the zen path: write, be strong, don't hate.  I'd accepted that we were done, and while I knew that I needed some time to recover, I was sure I'd be back at the dating game again at some point.

I should've knocked on wood.

Depression set in this morning.  Cold, hard, debilitating depression.  As I put on my clothes, I realized that now that B had dropped off the money, I had no reason to talk to him.  Ever again.  I would never see him again.  I would never hold him again.  I would never stroke his five o'clock shadow again, or groan when he suggested a documentary.  He would never send me funny memes.  Or laugh at the ridiculous number of books I read.  Or tell me that my hair smells nice after I've just showered.  He would never hold my hand.  We'd never go see the movies we'd watched trailers for.  We would never do anything together again.

I always download a podcast or two for my morning walk, but it was a struggle this morning.  There was nothing I wanted to listen to.  No music or voices I wanted to hear.  I eventually settled on an interview with a comedian.  Maybe this will make me laugh.  Or at least not cry.

It was a struggle to get myself out of the house.  I didn't want to walk.  I didn't want to see people.  I didn't want to be awake.

It was a struggle to work out.  I did fifteen sit-ups, five reverse chin-ups, and twenty leg-lifts.  And then I just couldn't convince myself to do anymore.  I'd started working out this summer in part for him.  And he wasn't a part of the summer anymore.  What was the point?

I took the short way home.  I fake smiled at the people I passed.  I almost sat down multiple times just from the sheer weight of it all.  I wasn't sure I could make it home without stopping for a minute on a park bench or the steps of that church I always pass, just to cry.  Just to give in to the overwhelming numbness.

It's not even pain.  Pain doesn't describe stage 4.  It's this emptiness.  This desire not to be.  Not like Hamlet "not to be"--I am extremely grateful to be alive.  Not even a break up with the sexiest, most caring man in the world could change that.  But a desire to not to be, just temporarily.  Until things blow over.  Until it doesn't hurt to move.  To talk.  To buy groceries.  To watch TV.  To read a book.  Until everything doesn't remind me of him.

For the first time this summer, I wish I was at work.  Because it is 10am right now, and the only thing I have scheduled for today is a volleyball game at 7:30 tonight.  That's nine and half hours of nothing.  Nine and half hours, rather, of missing B.  Of wanting to be asleep.  Of sleeping.

I don't know when acceptance will come.  I can only hope that it's sooner rather than later.  Because stage 4 is a bitch.  And I'm tired of it already.