It's Not As If New York City Burnt Down To The Ground, Once You Drove Away, It's Not As If The Sun Won't Shine

--"Breakin' Up", Rilo Kiley

"No one breaks your heart on purpose," I thought to myself as I sat on the plane leading me back to Los Angeles. It's not as if somebody meets a person and sets out to destroy them at first glance. It just doesn't happen. That's the only solace I could find in the situation. What else could I do under the circumstances? Wallow in a mire of self-pity and try to find out reasons why Tara did what she did? That wouldn't solve anything. I'd still be on a plane by myself and I'd still be broken up from the person who literally meant everything to me for the last year-and-a-half.

I tried to see it from her point-of-view. I attempted to visualize what could cause a woman to break up with a man on the second day of a five-day trip. I pictured her weighing the options of telling me sooner than later and still having to suffer through three days of having to spend time with me. Then I tried to picture her weighing the option of holding off on telling me and having to pretend she still felt as strongly for me as she once did. I don't know which I would have opted for. I tried to be empathetic for her situation, but it wasn't helping.

All I knew was my side and my side was this. I had set aside time to take this trip to spend time with her. I had made special arrangements to make it as special for her as possible. I had gone with the hopes of furthering a relationship I thought was leading somewhere. For those first couple of days it had been great. We had gotten along as we always had, joking and laughing around interspersed with intense bouts of lovemaking and generally romantic exchanges. I don't know--I thought everything was going fine. It didn't really start to change until she started talking about changing schools next year and what it would mean for us. I said what everybody says in that situation, that we could make it work. I said that, as long as we had each other, we could make anything work. Right after I said that she seemed assured and that was that. For the next few hours everything went back to being fine. I still had my cupcake and she still had me.

Things didn't start feeling weird again until we started to visualize how it would work, my flying out to see her in Pennsylvania, my having to work around a vastly different school schedule. The more I tried to scramble for solutions, the more she came up with more problems to our arrangement. There I was, thinking everything had been settled, only to realize she was already in the midst of deciding nothing was ever going to work for the two of us.

I believe that's all how break-ups begin. I've never heard of an exactly equally beneficial break-up. Usually one person decides to end things and the other person has to live with it. It's never a decision both parties come to amicably. One person most often decides to protest to the utter horror of the other person. I can't even tell you how many times I've wished whoever I was with and I could come to that kind of decision together, how much smoother my life would be if our timetables were in sync like that. But I might as well curse everyone for not thinking like I do. It'd do about as much good.

After that, everything really started crumbling. It was like watching the twelve steps of grief in fast forward. I've often heard that breaking up with someone or divorcing someone hits with as much emotional viciousness as losing someone to death; it impairs that severely and that permanently. And the manner in which she conducted it was especially vicious. I had my vacation ruined, my love life decimated, and my future albeit obliterated all in one fell swoop. I don't know if it would have been easier for her to have slowly drifted away, but going from "maybe we should see other people while I'm away at school" to "maybe we should take a break" to "maybe we should break-up" in the span of twenty hours isn't exactly enough time to cope effectively. I'm happy I kept it together as much as I did. It was like being forced from the nest only to land on the branch below. Then that branch breaks. Then the next, and the next, and the next, until I'm laying wounded on the ground below. Sure, they might have cushioned the fall somewhat, but each landing also gave me hope that that was as far as I would fall, only to have that security taken away as well. Frankly, it felt like a mean trick she was playing. It felt deliberate and it felt cruel.

It was only after I had been in the air for a few hours that I realized any vindictiveness was on my part and not hers. She had held up her end of the bargain. She had been straight forward with how she felt and hadn't held anything back. That's what I always expected of her and that's what I received.

Maybe the whole coming to grips with the break-up didn't happen all on the plane, but the idea that I could almost forgive her so soon after it happened led me to believe this wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Ever other break-up I've had since then has been a lot harder to deal with. I think that's because the way other women have handled it or I've handled has always been with kid gloves. We both have been guilty of allowing for that nasty bugger hope to creep in, the hope that someday bridges might be repaired and we could get back together.

Tara handled it differently and maybe that's why I don't despise her like I do other exes. She basically let me know in no uncertain terms that we were through. She didn't offer up any hope of reconciliation. No, if she did offer up any hope it was the notion that people can stop being in love with each other without resorting to hating each other. I may have left her hating the situation, but I didn't get on the plane with the idea to hold against her. What I left with was the feeling that it hurt a lot, but that it was okay to let it hurt. I left saying good-bye to a fantastic young woman who was as broken-hearted as I was, but with the resolution that time would heal my heart in time.

"No one breaks your heart on purpose," I repeated. Consequently, I landed in Los Angeles, almost secure in the knowledge that whatever wounds I suffered would heal because it's different when you know the pain isn't intentional. It doesn't feel as awful. It's like the difference between having your house robbed and having your house burnt down to the ground.

They're both hard to deal with, but, in the case of the former, it's not as if the house can't be rebuilt.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers