This is going to be uncomfortable – but not as uncomfortable as it probably is to be OJ. Or to be murdered by OJ. Or to be orange juice and suddenly hate your own nickname.
Yesterday I broke up with my boyfriend of a year and change. Is it very early to write about this? Probably. Am I insane? Almost definitely. I have never written about anything like this for public eyes before (unless you count extremely cringeworthy Facebook statuses circa 2007). I think that may be because I’ve felt like my emotions were so out of control I didn’t have anything useful or interesting to say (even in the throes of desperate, soul vomiting heartbreak I’m able to recognize that “BUT WE WERE GOING TO DO SO MUCH TOGETHER” is not a new take on breakup sadness, and while I may be wrapped in a sad bed burrito as I write this, I would sooner sell my soul to multilevel marketing than let the world know that I’m a fucking cliche). But when you’re an artist and you tell people you’re sad, a scene often unfolds in which they scream at you “USE IT IN YOUR ART!” as if suddenly possessed by the ghost of Bukowski.
So really this is just to shut you all up. I’m using it. Are you happy? I hope not. I’m not!
I won’t bore you with the details of the genesis of our relationship – the only interesting meet cutes I’ve had with people resulted in relationships that were so psychotic they’re worthy of an entire TSwift album. Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction gives the only meetup explanation the world will ever need, so we met “however people meet people.”
Something of note, though, is that I was so tired of relationships not working out that we decided we’d try this thing where when we had issues, we made the decision to *drum roll please* WORK THROUGH IT! That this was even an option blew my fucking mind. And I’m certain it’s the reason we made it past a year. I know a year is nothing to some people, but I am not good at sustainability. Maybe it’s the Gemini in me (or the having parents with unresolved mental health issues and inheriting a hefty endowment of anxiety and insecurities myself), but I have a lot of trouble moving through uncomfortable periods. I convince myself this (whatever “this” is) is how it will always be and boy if that’s the case you’d better leave now because you don’t want to be one of those suckers who’s stuck in some 5 year miserable thing they can’t get out of.
That’s seriously where my mind goes immediately for most issues. And I really mean most issues. We saw The Phantom Thread in theaters together and he absolutely adored every aspect of it, whereas I was sitting there wondering how the fuck I was supposed to find an abusive relationship amusing (eventually I realized that I guess it doesn’t seem that abusive to anyone who has never had someone verbally abusive in their lives, but I could write an entire 20 page post on this issue alone so I’ll cut myself off here). Upon realizing our differing opinions on the film, I fell into a deep pit of despair. I lay in bed crying trying to explain to him that since he enjoyed something that made me so sad we couldn’t possibly ever be happy together. And then I wrote the most intense journal entry of all time (I mean literally intense; I wrote so hard the pen tore holes in the page), which included the sublime line “I feel so much rage inside me I want to throw something,” and then I went on a tangent about how my emotional attachment to my unpopular opinions causes more issues than it should, in which I produced the gem “I feel so utterly alone. Why can’t I be right that St. Vincent is less lyrically complex than she comes off? It has to be that she’s not trying to be lyrically complex? I can’t offer interesting insight or thoughts? I’m just a negative bitch?” Poignant.
So we don’t talk about Daniel Day Lewis anymore, which is convenient timing being that he just retired (thanks, Dan.). AND we talked it through. And continued to talk it through every single time an issue like this came up (and it came up a lot). We talked about how I’m an insecure aggressive bitch about my opinions and he can be a bit of a pretentious dick about his. And we worked on it.
This dedication to each other showed me a side of love I had truly never seen before. But the thing about working through issues together is that some issues are too personal to be a team effort. My issues with anxiety and insecurity have, in the past, been too unresolved personally to possibly be resolved in a relationship. There are things that can only be worked through with a lot of personal dedication and a lot of time. And I think my lovely dude is there with his shit. My shit is nowhere near resolved. I’m like a supersenior at the college of My Shit. But he’s a freshman at the college of His Shit; he’s dedicated, he’s going to class, he’s doing most of his homework, and he wants to make the honor roll.
The fact that he was actively working on his shit is one of the things that attracted me to him in the first place. So many people (like, most people) don’t even know what their shit is. I knew I was making a healthy choice for once by choosing to be with someone who actively works on self improvement.
Unfortunately, an extreme desire to graduate doesn’t mean you can take accelerated courses (Jesus I regret picking this analogy. I mean it was good for the introduction of the issue but it’s become really campy and I don’t like it. I’m going to abruptly drop it now). He just wasn’t where I needed him to be with his shit. And we were aware of this. We spoke about it openly and discussed that it would be a deal breaker eventually if it didn’t improve at a particular rate. But again, you can’t just dump 4 years of coursework on someone’s desk and expect them to graduate next week (fuck, sorry).
Yesterday, I woke up happier than I have in a really long time. Maybe you’re used to waking up and not hating the thought of life, but this is a big deal to me. I think I felt okay because for the first time in awhile I wasn’t worried about Us. Though we had questioned the state of our relationship a week prior, the past week had been really great. We were clicking, we got each other, we didn’t get petty or mad about stupid shit like St. Vincent’s lyrical prowess, we chilled and played video games. I was going to go to the gym in the morning but I decided it would be kind of nice to just chill and walk to brunch together which we never do because we’re poor. In fact we hadn’t really just walked anywhere together in months. We had a really nice walk, we enjoyed ourselves at brunch, I put half of my delicious croissanwich in a box to go, and we left to walk back to his place.
On the way he started telling me about the last episode of Sacha Baron Cohen’s (I had to google that, I have never once successfully said or typed this man’s name) show where I guess Sacha disguises himself and gets OJ talking about the murders. On a surface level, I got it. Of course that’s what you’d want OJ to talk about on your show where you trick people into showing their true colors. But I wasn’t quite getting the contextual details of how he got him to talk about it or if OJ knew that’s what he’d be talking about. For some reason, I have always struggled with this; I want to understand all of the nuances of what someone is telling me because I don’t know how to feel about it if I don’t understand all the angles or the full message and yet I don’t know how to convey this need to anyone in a way that gets me the answers I’m looking for.
So I had a complete meltdown on Melrose Avenue in which I cried and screamed “BUT WHY WOULD OJ TALK TO A STRANGER ABOUT MURDERING SOMEONE.”
It’s definitely a “trigger” for me. It frustrates me that I can’t seem to just accept the information that people give me and have a normal conversation. It frustrates me that no one else seems to care about or need context as much as I do. And it really frustrates me that I fail to express myself in these moments because I immediately start feeling like a freak about it, like I did when I was 10 and then I proceed to act like a fucking 10 year old. There are a handful of issues that will do this to me. While I’m pretty logical and self aware, I am also a very reactive and emotional person. I have extremely strong reactions to things as they’re happening and then I calm down super quickly and am able to talk about it. In one of Marc Maron’s specials he reflects on how he hasn’t gotten any better about yelling at people, he’s just shortened the time between the outburst and his apology to the point where it’s basically like “FUCK YOU! I’m sorry.” That’s where I’m at, and we’d gotten to a point where he would just let me have my tantrum and then be there to talk when I was done. I have never felt so loved than in those moments.
When we finally got to his place (it took awhile. I stopped to cry on a lot of corners), we began to pick through what happened. I told him about feeling like a freak and hating myself for having this issue, and then something happened that kind of changed everything. He told me that all those times I had those emotional reactions and screamed and cried, he was just pretending to be okay with it and it actually really hurt him.
I almost threw up. I had just told one of my good friends about how beautiful it was that I was with someone who could just let me do my thing and know it wasn’t about them.
But how could it not hurt someone? When it happens, I often think there’s no way I’d be with someone who talked to me that way. I don’t even remember the things I say in those moments because they’re said in such fits of rage and emotion. That’s a scary thought.
I’m going to have a real moment of honesty here. I started this post thinking I’d talk about how we realized he just wasn’t where he needed to be for a healthy relationship. And I think that’s true. But through writing this I’m realizing I’m not a supersenior at the College of My Shit. I’m a fucking Junior who already has Senioritis and is now phoning it in because they’ve made the honor roll all 5 semesters so far. I’ve been resting on the laurels of all of the work I’ve done on myself and I’ve stopped short of the juiciest bits. I’m not saying the goal is to be perfect and never explode at someone. I think people should be able to be the shittiest versions of themselves sometimes and have people in their lives who love them not just despite it but because of it. But if I’m being honest I’ve barely been trying since I got comfortable with our dynamic.
We sat in silence for awhile after he said this. Then I asked him what he was thinking and he talked about his own struggles. We were quiet for about another ten minutes, but my brain was screaming “breaking up is the right choice!” And eventually, I said it out loud. He said he agreed. I got up to pee because I’d been holding it since OJ. Then I packed up my stuff. We both ugly cried for about 20 seconds and I realized if I didn’t leave then I’d change my mind. So I walked out the door and LEFT MY FUCKING HALF CROISSANWICH. I MEAN COME THE FUCK ON. YOU TOOK THE TIME TO USE THE BATHROOM AND PICK YOUR UNDERWEAR OFF THE FLOOR. HOW MUCH TACKIER WOULD IT HAVE BEEN TO TAKE YOUR FOOD?
I cried the whole way to my car and kept stopping to look back, hoping he’d come after me. I don’t know what I was expecting. What was he going to do, walk out of his place in his boxers and say “No! Don’t go! We aren’t actually troubled individuals! Or even if we are, let’s just risk hurting each other in terrible and dramatic ways anyway!”
Actually that does sound nice right now, if I’m being honest.
I’ve never broken up with someone that I love. I have either had my heart broken or I let myself get sick of the person. I feel like I just broke my own heart. I listened to myself and I feel fucking terrible. I’m the worst friend ever.
If you happen to be reading this (I mean him specifically. Anyone who’s reading this is reading this and this message isn’t for just anyone) please accept my beat up, bleeding heart. It’s not a great gift, I know. I’m not even sure what you’re supposed to do with it, but I want you to have it. I guess you can have the half croissanwich, too. It probably tastes better.
Midnight Oatmeal 