Confessions of a Break Up Addict

Every writer’s got a thing that always seems to creep into their writing. For some (actually, many) that thing is illicit drug use; for others (actually, not many) it’s nautical adventure. For me, that thing is break-ups.

Cue “Forever Young”, “Every Breath You Take” “Wish You Were Here”…

Break ups fascinate me. Break ups are like one of those hallways from a 1980s music video: a black and white tunnel in slanted perspective, full of misshapen closed doors, a red ball bouncing away into the distance. Despite the obvious clichéd meanings you know surround you, everything still feels heavy and of great import. It all means something, man.

Don’t get me wrong; I despise break ups. In fact, as time goes on I can barely bring myself to the first date in fear of the last one. For as long as I’ve been getting romantically involved, break ups have been turning points of inner tumult, starting with Charlie, with whom there were some four break ups in 6th grade, followed by seven with 8th grade bo Andrew. It has never mattered what side of the schism I’m on, the emotional gusto often worse when I am the perpetrator; break ups are intense.

It must be the act of goodbye that gets my goat. On the last day of kindergarten I went home in tears. I loved kindergarten; it was barely a five hour day, and I had a group of some five boys with whom I played Super Heroes during our one-hour recess. I always got to play Cat Woman. So as I was driven away from kindergarten graduation, a great chapter was ending. First grade was going to have new rules. I’d heard the rumors: only one half hour recess, longer days, math, work to do at home, more students to deal with, everybody starts getting competitive. But without the full hour recess, there would be little time to play Batman and Cat Woman. And, I was told, in first grade girls had to be girls. That night I cried and fantasized about superhero lullabies while falling asleep to Barry White, knowing that innocence was being lost. I was five.

Eighth grade graduation was much the same. Boys and girls alike bawled and cried at the graduation dance, well aware that our power position was about to be gerrymandered away, and therefore who knew who would be our friends next year… in high school. And then there was the goodbye in Italy. Me, 19, my back pack and Eurail pass in hand as my train is pulling away, JB and Christina (and some other now forgotten) best friends from the past five months (undying friendships start quickly at 19) running with the train on the platform, crying uncontrollably. I myself was not crying, but just looked on in blank fascination at the girls as they retreated, one teary and uncontrolled mess trying to keep up with the train as it pulled away from Stazione Firenze. At the time, I suppose I figured I’d see them back in the States, or be back in Italy in two years when we graduated and got those travel grants. We all assumed we’d get back there again. I have not been to Italy since.

People say that once they experience a parent’s death, they’re never the same. The day of my dad’s wake was a goodbye of an entirely different order. Grasping the fact of death may be unfathomable for a mere mortal, but there, as I stood for eight hours next to his open casket, the fact was in my face: this was the last time I’d see my father. Over those eight hours, I must have said goodbye every fifteen minutes.

As we get older our break ups get more intense precisely because life has shown us that goodbyes are often of a certain permanence. There is no going back, no matter what one’s intentions are. Of course, break ups are not deaths, but they are deaths of a kind. They are emotional goodbyes, ones that we often try to control in a variety of outlandish ways: sending near funereal bouquets of flowers, crafting the most poetic or well structured email or, better yet, drafting an analog letter so well put and fail-safe it rivals a legal brief. Such actions aim to redirect the sinking ship to new, safe waters. However—and not that I know anything about this— with every effort, it may even push fate along. All of this is why break ups are a good source of comedy and death is, well, not so much. Man and his efforts to defeat Fate is always funny.

The end of a relationship hurts like nothing else because, among other reasons, the object of desire is still out there (alive!). Ah yes, the slow turning from something here to something there, from something present to something past, and the gut wrenching feeling of knowing that it’s happening. That door in the slanted hallway is slamming, and don’t count on it opening again, buddy boy.

Faced with all these operatic realizations, we are raw and often act a bit crazy, which is why I seem to write about break-ups like a spy novelist. Every emotional scar, every emotional high and emotional triumph comes out of hiding and are laid out in the broad daylight, stinging your eyes and causing you be nice to strangers and store clerks, your vulnerability making you drop your everyday callous behavior. During fresh moments like those I’ve even apologized to villains who deserved not apologies but public whippings. While one is experiencing the end of a relationship there’s a certain desperation for a connection, for forgiveness, for someone to tell us that this too shall pass.

Miraculously, it does all pass. But it does not always pass without damage. A friend of mine is worried that he cannot feel love anymore because maybe our bodies change—maybe it’s chemically impossible to love like we did when we were younger. I think it’s more about the bruises we acquire, and our success at healing and getting back on the horse.

But on this Blue Monday it is not a break up, as much as it is a goodbye to a very important friend as he leaves this troubled country. And like break-ups those are deep moments, ones that conjure up memories of saying goodbye to Superhero fantasies and Florentine utopias. Something may not be quite rotten in the state of Denmark, but it does sadden those of us left on the platform.