Breaking up with my (now ex-)boyfriend was really hard.
I'm not trying to be melodramatic, just honest. And to put it in perspective, I've experienced an unexpected pregnancy and pushed a small human out of my vagina without any sort of narcotic drug, and heartbreak hurts worse than all that.
Six months plus removed from it, I'm starting to figure out why. What hurts more about "breaking up" than other sorts of hurt; rejection, criticism, loneliness, all other physical pain, is that these are all relatively transient. They happen, it sucks, you move on. Heartbreak (or breaking up) falls into this category too, with one big asterisk.
*Breaking up, and the subsequent heartbreak (or was it simultaneous, or was it breaking up preceded by the heartbreak?) was hard for me because in one fell swoop (and I can't think of a better description other than that) I lost my lover and my best friend.
I think those two words encompass everything that a significant other does. I'm not going to delve into the intricacies and importance of just having someone to fully complement your emotional, intellectual and physical needs, but to me, that's a lover and a best friend. And to lose this person, it's...well, it sucks. And it's hard. And it hurts.
I think writing about this earlier (and when it still hurt a lot) I likened it to waking up from a bad dream, or emerging from drowning. I'm sure I meant it then, but the reality is, or the reality now is that it's just waking up after a dream. Or coming up for air after being underwater. It's a change in reality, and now when I've wiped the water from my eyes, blinked in the sunlight, I can start to marvel at the bright beauty and consistency of the sky.
Stepping into this new reality is fun and exciting and scary, and everything is not that changed from where I left it, but everything is...different. Without my best friend.
It's also weird because losing a best friend isn't just like erasing a hard drive. There are memories and experiences and things and these things stay with you even after that best friend is gone.
It's funny what sticks with you and also what doesn't.
There are things that he introduced me to that I still love, and can enjoy without him. The Black Lips, soy chicken patties, to name a few.
There are things that I have an unexpected fondness for, the Pittsburgh Pirates, namely.
There are things that we discovered together that I still enjoy. Borderlands. (Borderlands 2, September 18 hollaa.)
I wonder why some things stick and some inexplicably don't.
I've always liked lo-fi power-anthem type songs, so that's why I still like the Black Lips. I've loved sports long before the boyfriend came along, and I really like sports writing and analysis, and one time I read this great article about why the Pirates losing seasons are really the only way the team is financially viable, and I really loved that. I also have a soft spot for the under dog. (This doesn't explain my continued support for the Pittsburgh Penguins, but maybe it's the Carolina blue vintage uniforms?)
You want to know the one thing that I absolutely cannot stand anymore? The one thing that is so incredibly painful, the one thing that brings knots to my stomach and disgust to my face?
The Fleet Foxes.
I hate the Fleet Foxes.
But why the Fleet Foxes? Out of all the things that I shared with that person, the Fleet Foxes? What about those harmless harmonizers makes me want to simultaneously throw up and shit my pants?
It's weird because the Fleet Foxes were not a band that I really liked. I mean, I heard them on the radio now and then, and I loved "White Winter Hymnal", but I never really listened to them before he played them for me one night--the first night that L and I went to visit him, actually.
And I just...I associate the Fleet Foxes with that first night. With Lena sleeping in the pack-N-play, with drinking wine on the couch, with so little and so much, to simply put it, starting off on a new adventure.
The thing that I never told him, or anyone, really, is that after that weekend, when I got home and put Lena in bed, I bought the album that he played that night. Because it was so perfect for that moment, for that adventure, and I wanted to have it for whenever I needed it.
Now that adventure is over. Or it was over. Or of course it's never actually over.
And it's easy to smile back on all of this, to wonder about the things that are different, and the things that are the same.
So R.I.P, Fleet Foxes. May you give many many more people wonderful memories, and I'm sorry I lost you in the heartbreak. Really, it wasn't you, it's me.
I'm just glad I haven't had to give up frozen pizza or Bob Dylan.
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