Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Sooner or later, love is gonna get ya

Two weekends ago, four days shy of a year after our first date, we made a peaceful, level-headed, and final decision to end our relationship. I don't plan to say much about it here, due to obvious privacy concerns. If that means I have to settle for a blog post like this that's somewhat dull and abstract, instead of publishing the more vividly revealing thoughts in my head, then so be it.

I have an unfortunate tendency, which I'm sure is very common, to obsess after a breakup over all the things that seemingly went wrong. A couple different kinds of regret are inevitable, but important to transcend: (1) feeling bad about all the things that, in retrospect, were wrong with the relationship (how could I have been so blind to how deeply problematic factors X, Y, and Z were?), and (2) feeling bad about how good things used to be (how am I ever going to find such a perfect match again?). It's like Woody Allen's lame joke in Annie Hall: relationships are the restaurant where people say, "The food at this place is really terrible ... and such small portions." In response to point 2: I know, and I try to remember, that you can never get back the past. It doesn't matter whether you'd like to or not; you won't. (This is true of relationships in general, not just breakups.) In response to point 1: I'm reminded of some wise words someone told me years ago:

If you make sure that nothing bad ever happens to you, you'll also make sure nothing really good ever happens to you either.
I wouldn't trade the mix of good and bad times (mostly good, by far) that we had together over the past year for anything. They were flawed and beautiful. No one other than two people will ever know about them; I simultaneously relish and cringe at that fact. 2009 may have been a pretty dismal year for the country as a whole, but it was a great year for me. At the same time, I have to believe there's someone better out there, for both of us. It's popular and palatable, as a single person, to claim you're "not looking for a relationship." I'd love to say I'm totally self-reliant and don't "need" someone else. But it's not true. I just don't know who it is yet.

For now, I'll be reflecting on how I can fine-tune "what I'm looking for," consciously doing things we used to do together and accepting that they're still worth doing, overinterpreting every love song playing in the background...

6 comments:

Evan said...

"There is no escape along the lines St Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to be sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, emotionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, unredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

[CS Lewis, The Four Loves]

Freeman Hunt said...

Wow, sounds like you've got the perfect attitude about the whole thing.

The right one will come along. Best of luck to you.

Chidy said...

Maybe you'll hit it off with one of your commentors. I hear that works out for some people.

Jason (the commenter) said...

I imagine this all has something to do with Jaltcoh's reticence to use Twitter. I know when I consider a man I always ask myself "is he effectively using social networking to influence his network across a variety of topics?"

Darcy said...

What a beautiful post. I'm sorry you're going through this, but this is a moving tribute to a deeply felt relationship, and it says a lot about you, I think. You'll find that someone.

former law student said...

Being dispassionate and rational about something as emotionally charged as love and relationships is extremely difficult, but extremely necessary.

I take my hat off to John here. Many would rather coast than face the reality of their situation.