Last night, I did something very painful. So painful because I knew it was the right decision, but I also knew that it would crush the feelings of someone I very much cared about.
I broke up with a guy that I have been dating. Not for very long, but for very deep. And I like to think that's the kind of thing that matters; counting the time you talked about your values and fears and emotions, not counting how many Saturdays you spent having brunch and talking about Lost reruns.
I have another story about a breakup and it was much, much worse. I think everyone does, but mine seems particularly painful because it involves an international surfer and me also feeling a little like I had signed up to give all of my money away to an African nation whose funds have been frozen. Or something.
There was this guy. He lived in Aruba and he taught me how to surf. I knew he wasn't theeee guuuyyy, but it involved me flying to Aruba every few months and it's hard to remember the downsides of not being in a fulfilling relationship when 90% of the relationship is spent on private beaches.
After bi-secting the country via airplane every few months for a year, we had talked about me moving down there to try things out full time. I had just finished reading all of these very idealistic blog posts about how people were quitting their jobs to pursue ant-farming and the like so I figured that I could quit my job and pursue surfing and yoga and beach lounging without too much consequence (also, I was 24).
And after all of this discussion, I stopped hearing from him like two weeks later. Nevermind that we had talked nearly every day (via phone, email or Skype) for over a year. Nevermind that I had thoroughly endeared myself to his friends. Nevermind that I had eaten chicken for him (I was a vegetarian). Nevermind that I was the smart girl with the schmancy degree from a top tier university that watched Ricki Lake and made fun of people who moved halfway across the world and did things like I was doing (I know. I know, I know. I know.). He just stopped calling. And so I started snooping.
I'm not great at dragging out stories like this when it's not actually the point so...the point is that I found out he had met another girl, from Sweden, who was this sort of a vagabond/traveler/yoga-instructor and pretty much everything I was trying to convince myself that I was, but really I was only a very small portion of all of those things. Mostly because I'm neurotic and have fears of failure and sometimes can't own my crazy decisions as much as I would like.
In the span of two weeks, she had moved in with him and I'm pretty sure they adopted a mistfit dog together. All without me "knowing". I found all of this out from Facebook and GoogleTranslate: English to Swedish (I'm really, really good. Please contact me if you would like me to internet-snoop for you.)
And so he honored the year that we had spent together by ignoring me and all of my phone calls and then after I went off on a hysterical crying rampage the one time I DID get him on the phone, he mumbled some blather about deserving someone better than him and hung up very abruptly.
I am telling you this not to garner sympathy or comments like "He didn't deserve you anyway." (In fact, I'm probably more scared of the comments like "Really? He was a surfer from Aruba and you DIDN'T see this coming? Seriously?" The only response I have to that is: I know. I know, I know. I know.) I'm telling you this because I promised I would never, ever, ever be that person.
I was chatting with a very wise friend of mine last night after I broke up with my current guy and, through my tears, I managed to hear her say, "The best thing that we can feel in difficult situations is compassion. Love and compassion for another human being is the foundation of all religions, and it is when we are feeling this compassion for another is when we are closest to our true selves."
So while the easy choice for my current relationship would have been to never call him again or to let him move out to Colorado for the winter ski season and then mumble some bull about it being too hard to do distance, I chose the compassionate route. I chose to tell him that I felt for him and that I did care about him, but not in the way that he needed to be cared about. And then I hung up the phone and fell asleep because I wasn't sure how else to make sense of all of the emotions that were welling up in my chest.
It required me to be bold. And it required me to feel the weight of his heart being broken. And I cried for him because I know how terrible it feels for a heart to break. I've felt it many times and while there's always a feeling of growth and strength afterwards, there's still the initial feeling of "Fuck. This hurts like hell."
I hope to never, ever be the person that just stops calling. I have done it before and yes, it's easy. But the same wise friend as above once told me that there are always two choices to make: an easy choice and a hard choice. The difference is that what comes after the easy choice is always harder, whereas what comes after the hard choice is always easier.
I broke up with a guy that I have been dating. Not for very long, but for very deep. And I like to think that's the kind of thing that matters; counting the time you talked about your values and fears and emotions, not counting how many Saturdays you spent having brunch and talking about Lost reruns.
I have another story about a breakup and it was much, much worse. I think everyone does, but mine seems particularly painful because it involves an international surfer and me also feeling a little like I had signed up to give all of my money away to an African nation whose funds have been frozen. Or something.
There was this guy. He lived in Aruba and he taught me how to surf. I knew he wasn't theeee guuuyyy, but it involved me flying to Aruba every few months and it's hard to remember the downsides of not being in a fulfilling relationship when 90% of the relationship is spent on private beaches.
After bi-secting the country via airplane every few months for a year, we had talked about me moving down there to try things out full time. I had just finished reading all of these very idealistic blog posts about how people were quitting their jobs to pursue ant-farming and the like so I figured that I could quit my job and pursue surfing and yoga and beach lounging without too much consequence (also, I was 24).
And after all of this discussion, I stopped hearing from him like two weeks later. Nevermind that we had talked nearly every day (via phone, email or Skype) for over a year. Nevermind that I had thoroughly endeared myself to his friends. Nevermind that I had eaten chicken for him (I was a vegetarian). Nevermind that I was the smart girl with the schmancy degree from a top tier university that watched Ricki Lake and made fun of people who moved halfway across the world and did things like I was doing (I know. I know, I know. I know.). He just stopped calling. And so I started snooping.
I'm not great at dragging out stories like this when it's not actually the point so...the point is that I found out he had met another girl, from Sweden, who was this sort of a vagabond/traveler/yoga-instructor and pretty much everything I was trying to convince myself that I was, but really I was only a very small portion of all of those things. Mostly because I'm neurotic and have fears of failure and sometimes can't own my crazy decisions as much as I would like.
In the span of two weeks, she had moved in with him and I'm pretty sure they adopted a mistfit dog together. All without me "knowing". I found all of this out from Facebook and GoogleTranslate: English to Swedish (I'm really, really good. Please contact me if you would like me to internet-snoop for you.)
And so he honored the year that we had spent together by ignoring me and all of my phone calls and then after I went off on a hysterical crying rampage the one time I DID get him on the phone, he mumbled some blather about deserving someone better than him and hung up very abruptly.
I am telling you this not to garner sympathy or comments like "He didn't deserve you anyway." (In fact, I'm probably more scared of the comments like "Really? He was a surfer from Aruba and you DIDN'T see this coming? Seriously?" The only response I have to that is: I know. I know, I know. I know.) I'm telling you this because I promised I would never, ever, ever be that person.
I was chatting with a very wise friend of mine last night after I broke up with my current guy and, through my tears, I managed to hear her say, "The best thing that we can feel in difficult situations is compassion. Love and compassion for another human being is the foundation of all religions, and it is when we are feeling this compassion for another is when we are closest to our true selves."
So while the easy choice for my current relationship would have been to never call him again or to let him move out to Colorado for the winter ski season and then mumble some bull about it being too hard to do distance, I chose the compassionate route. I chose to tell him that I felt for him and that I did care about him, but not in the way that he needed to be cared about. And then I hung up the phone and fell asleep because I wasn't sure how else to make sense of all of the emotions that were welling up in my chest.
It required me to be bold. And it required me to feel the weight of his heart being broken. And I cried for him because I know how terrible it feels for a heart to break. I've felt it many times and while there's always a feeling of growth and strength afterwards, there's still the initial feeling of "Fuck. This hurts like hell."
I hope to never, ever be the person that just stops calling. I have done it before and yes, it's easy. But the same wise friend as above once told me that there are always two choices to make: an easy choice and a hard choice. The difference is that what comes after the easy choice is always harder, whereas what comes after the hard choice is always easier.
