I don't love you anymore. Goodbye...

So the other day I was talking to someone one I know, and  he was telling me how he had dated someone for 9 years and they had broken up. I made the face I always make when someone tells me they've been dating someone for like 5 years or something and they broke up. The thing I just never understand is how you can walk away from someone you've been with THAT long. How do you love someone for that long and then you just don't? Where does all that love go is my problem?! Can you just wake up one morning and not be in love with someone anymore? 

Personally, I've never been in a relationship that's lasted longer than 3 years but I remember at some point desperately wanting to be that person who had dated someone for years and years because somehow I thought that mean't that they were my someone, because why would I date someone that long for it to mean nothing in the end. Anyway, because of this, at some point I ended up dating someone longer than I should have because I wanted to know what that was like. That was obviously a bad idea. More than anything though I wanted to find out what relationships like that entail because I had always been someone who didn't really stick around for the 'hard' times in relationships. By hard times I mean staying with someone who had cheated on me to try and "work it out" or anything else really that I found to be completely annoying. I always figured that if this annoys me now, how much more will it annoy me 5, 10 years down the line? So rather just cut my losses now right and find someone who doesn't do things that annoy me. I'm simplifying it too much here though, I don't mean random things like leaving the toilet seat up or chewing with their mouth open, they were serious things I won't go into here! One of the reasons I'm like this is because of what my mom told me years ago about getting married. She told me once that whatever things the person you're dating does that you don't like and you think they will stop doing once you get married, you can forget about it, once you're married they'll probably do it 10 to the power of 5. For those of you who didn't do maths, that's 10x10x10x10x10! Just imagine!!

But as I learned from that relationship is that people really do just break up, like people who have been married for 25 years getting a divorce, people who have dated for 5 years or ten years do just break up! And I don't know if it's because they stopped loving each other or maybe the love just wasn't enough. 
And when is love not enough you ask? Well I guess when loving someone hurts. And being with them brings nothing but heartache. And you realize that you have to love yourself more than them and walk away. 

I'm sure some would argue that you don't leave someone you still love, I guess it's up to the individual anyhow, what you can deal with. Another person will stay with someone just because they can't bear to see them with someone else. Another might stay because they don't think they can get someone better or that that person is all they deserve in this life of sin. Or just the familiarity I guess, the routine that you've gotten used to, seems unimaginable to no longer be doing those things. Or the trouble of actually breaking up. On its own though it's just a pain let's admit. Especially if you are deeply involved in each others lives, have the same friends, your family knows them and vice versa...I won't even go into the part of having a kid together!

Alice (Natalie Portman's character in Closer) said the only way to leave is to tell the person you don't love them anymore, goodbye. And Dan asked her and if you still love them, what happens then, and she said then you don't leave. You don't leave someone you love. 
Yes? No? Maybe?!

**** I wrote this while watching Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider is a really bad movie!****

When I got dumped

Generally women are not the ones who are broken up with, they usually whip out the "We need to talk", "It's not you, it's me" ..."But, we can still be friends" lines and men, I would assume, are kinda used to being dumped so although it might hurt and it could be earth shattering, it's hardly ever unexpected. So I never thought I would actually get dumped, the thought of it seemed embarrassing somehow, like something I should be ashamed of, because things like that don't happen to nice girls but it happened to me. I can't really say it was humbling because while it was happening, I'm pretty sure I thought life as I knew it was over. My ego had nothing to do with the pain, my first instinct was probably to try and fix it. Which can be a little difficult when you didn't actually do anything wrong. Getting dumped simply because they like someone else more than they like you. There really is no quick fix for that. No apology or bunch of red roses would do the trick. 

In this particular instance when you are the dumper (the one who dumps) you mentally and emotionally prepare yourself for the eventual end of the relationship and so by the time it happens you're cool you know coz you've made peace with it and gotten all your necessary closure and possibly even have another gig lined up (another conquest or suitor). But, when you are the dumpee (the one being dumped), you generally don't see it coming, don't have the time to prepare for it and the shock to your system can be pretty mind numbing. For me it felt like, you know how supposedly you kill vampires by ripping their hearts out of their chests? Well that was me, like someone had literally grabbed my heart out of my chest and was holding it in their hand & squeezing really hard. Or perhaps, for those of you who have asthma, like when you have an asthma attack and it feels like someone is squeezing your lungs real tight and so you just start crying coz you don't know what else to do to show how much pain you're in. And that's what I did, I cried and cried and cried. I think I cried everyday for two weeks. I would cry myself to sleep at night and then wake up in the morning and remember I had been dumped and start crying again. Like clockwork, everyday! I would randomly start crying while walking to/from class and I didn't even care who was watching. The tears would just start dripping out of me, like there was a switch in my brain that would remember how much it all hurt hahahahahaha I laugh now but it wasn't funny then. I don't know what made me stop crying but one day I woke up and the tears weren't there. And I stopped.

That's the great thing about time though! It heals! I could never go back to that moment and feel that pain again as it was. Now it's just a memory of something that happened, of a story I like telling people to remind them that nothing is permanent. And as much as anything hurts right now, today...tomorrow it's gonna hurt less until it just doesn't anymore. 

 

Anyway, I was doing my 1st year in varsity when this happened and I would love to say I'm so much more wiser now and I would never cry over a dude for two weeks because I'm a grown-up but as the Wizard of Oz said to the Tin man: Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable. 

I think the worst thing about being the dumpee in this particular instance is that well you have nothing to fix really, you can't be a better you, or make the other person the dumper is leaving you for less interesting to the dumper. It's easy if perhaps you cheated or there has been a gradual deterioration of the relationship, coz then it's not a surprise, like an earthquake. I honestly think that person has made up their mind by then and nothing you say or do can make them stay. I really don't think people wake up one morning and randomly decide they are breaking up with someone, there's a build-up, a behind the scenes moment that you just don't know about. 

Anyway, writing this made me remember this one line from a song I love by Rachael Yamagata called 'Elephants'

"So for those of you falling in love, keep it kind, keep it good, keep it right. Throw yourself in the midst of danger but keep one eye open at night."

I think that's pretty sound advice from one dumpee to another ;-)