Broken

Have you ever broken a bone?

I know a couple of people who never have. One of those people is the last man I dated. I think people who have never made a scary trip to the ER or broken a bone have a misunderstanding about how much it hurts. It's not the worst thing to endure, but it's a big deal, and at the moment that it's happening it is the biggest thing in my world. The pain is real. Not insurmountable, but very, very real.

I broke my arm when I was 9 (badly). Bones just all in the wrong places.  I've broken toes over a dozen times (once in 5th grade, and several other times as a hazard of being a martial artist), broke my ankle and had a hairline fracture in a vertebrae in my neck due to a car accident when I was 24. Then of course, I have dislocated my knees a lot. While bones aren't broken in that process, the backs of my knee caps do now sport deep grooves in them from running up and over the fibula and tibia (I know, ewwwww).  I have had my share of the feeling of being broken. There is pain, the sick feeling after the initial pain subsides, the concern about what will happen next and if everything will heal the same.

So, I say this with real experience to back it up - there is a reason why we call it "breaking" up when a relationship is ending and it's because ending or changing something you thought you had with another person feels broken and jagged and hurty. There is a feeling of being broken, there is a sharp pain, a sick feeling, and a lot of concern about what happens next. Other people might not see your bones poking in the wrong direction, and you may be able to conceal it. There's no trip to the ER but it is a trauma. It's not easy to stop caring about someone (or caring as much about them as you did), and it does require a break from what you thought and knew and believed, and hoped. Breaking things usually means they don't go back together the exact same way. My arm did heal fully and only a good radiologist or medical examiner would be able to tell where the break was, but it took 4 months. My ankle and neck required 6 months of physical therapy. As for the rest,  my toes are noticeably crooked, and my knees will probably both need to be replaced by the time I'm 50. They will never be the same.

My break-ups have been similar experiences. Either it takes such an inordinate amount of time to pick up the pieces and try again, or I feel like I'm never quite the same afterwords. After the second time I was engaged,  when he left, I was literally left all alone in a state where I didn't know anyone, having moved here for him, and it was about 5 minutes after my dad died. The honest truth is that I was never the same after that. I got over feeling like I was worthless, I got over thinking I must not have meant anything to him for him to walk away so coldly, I stopped crying and eating frozen pizza. I dated, and made a life here. But I don't think I'll ever give up that much for someone again, no matter how much I love them. Maybe that's a good thing, because there are plenty of people who know and love me who would argue I accommodated too much in my relationship with him, but I also feel a little sad that I wasted all that trust and faith on someone so unworthy. I don't miss him but I'm disappointed that I gave so much to him and I miss believing in love and relationships that completely.

So, while I haven't been curled in the fetal position during this break-up, or cried inconsolably (I've cried three times, each time for less than 2 minutes) I wonder what lesson this break-up will teach me. To be friends after? To suck it up and move on? That I deserve more? Or something sadder, like, everyone leaves? It doesn't matter how hard I try, relationships don't work for me? Or, my deepest, darkest fear which if I write here will just sound like I'm begging for someone to refute it. And I'm not . . . I'm just considering it.

For now, I am trying very hard to remember a few things.

• No one can make me do something that's bad for me except me. As such, if I decide to get really drunk, or eat badly, that's on me. The break-up isn't an excuse for that.

• None of my goals should be changed by this. I still want to take better care of myself. I still want a career that better matches a lifestyle that allows for kids. I still want kids.

• I may feel awful, but it is no one's best interest for me to make them feel bad too. No one deserves for me to take this out on them - even him.

• If I find I need to have a real cry sometime, that's ok. 

• Drinking a lot will make me feel worse.

• Conversely, working out a lot will make me feel better, even if it doesn't always seem like it.

• When he says he is walking away because he loves me, I am allowed to reject that premise.

• If he talks about getting back together I am allowed to say 'no' and/or to hold him to a higher standard than I did this time.

• It's ok to have the standards that I do for my next relationship, and this break-up shouldn't change them.

• I am free to tell people I don't want to talk about it. Their feelings are not my responsibility, only my feelings are.

• It is completely reasonable that I start dating again ASAP, because I don't need to put more time into waiting for him. But it might not be fair to someone else. Need to think more on that.

• This is what therapists are for.

• This is what friends are for.