For those of you who have followed my blog from it’s very beginning, you’ll know that I started this a creative outlet and a way to distract myself from what was at the time, a horrible and roller-coaster-of-emotions-break up. It was a great way to share things with people who didn’t know me, who didn’t know that I was miserable and crying all the time. It was embarrassing enough dealing with it with my friends, so it was nice having this space to share and write everything I was thinking.
But ho, the relationship was saved! We decided to give it the good old college try and get back into the swing of things for the last couple weeks of school and it was wonderful, like nothing had ever changed. Maybe that was the problem. We decided to do the whole long distance during the summer, a grueling what would’ve been four months, but ended up being cut short.
Two and a half weeks after a wonderful visit to Philadelphia, a road trip to a popular Delaware beach filled with friends, booze, heat and handmade doughnuts and tons of quality time with my man, and finally saying goodbye to a beloved dog, he dropped the ultimate bomb on me: He was asked to withdraw from school and move 2,000 miles away to Los Angeles to start a YouTube channel with his best friend.
Of course I was shocked. Devastated. I couldn’t go one minute without crying or getting angry and asking everybody I knew if I was crazy for not wanting him to go. I was torn between being supportive and being the loving, encouraging girlfriend I always hoped I’d be. I thought I’d be Audrey Hepburn, full of class and grace. Instead, I quickly turned into more of a Katharine Hepburn, saying whatever thought popped into my confused mind and tossing all support and elegance aside and diving straight into the begging, the crying and the praying. Like, literal me talking-to-myself-or-whoever-is-watching-over praying. I was looking for a sign, a sign why he shouldn’t be going and that he would come back to school and follow the plan. We were going to celebrate my birthday in October and then our one year anniversary a month later. We were going to party, hang out in my single room, join new clubs and explore Boston as college sophomores, not scared freshmen.
But man makes plans and God laughs, right?
So of course, we broke up. After a stupid drunk text and another paragraph of denial, the shock of my boyfriend–not only my boyfriend but my best friend–suddenly not being in my life began to wear off. Well, I’m still in shock. I still expect him to text me good morning and tell me loves me at night but we’re just not together anymore. And I’m too angry to want to talk to him anyways. It felt like he didn’t even take “us” into consideration, and that confuses me because I thought he loved me.
So how do I deal with this? I’ve done the crying, that was over pretty fast. Then I did the whole denial thing like “no, he’s going to come back, this is going to be a failure for him.” Now I’m in the isolation stage. I deactivated Facebook, I’ve stopped hanging out with my friends because I need some time to myself, to think, to re-evaluate my priorities. I may even take a trip to New Mexico to visit my aunt for some good old escaping and relaxing.
I’ve thought about starting my own YouTube channel, writing more in this blog, totally redecorating my room, dying my hair, saying “yes” to more things…. but I’m not sure how to get motivated. I’m more of the eat-a-whole-pizza-by-myself kind of person at this stage, but I think it’s time to get out of the wallow and move back into the gym with my good old pals Burpee and Deadlift.
What about my readers? How have you dealt with an unexpected breakup? Was it as tough and confusing for you as it is for me? I read a scientific study once saying that women have been socialized into thinking that it’s always their fault the relationship ended, and I keep racking my brain for why he would leave. I wish I could understand more why he was making this decision instead of trying to find himself at school and I wish he could express to me that this was a tough decision to make, but what I’ve been finding out this summer is that shit happens for a reason and somewhere down the line I’ve got to get with that program.