Jan 13, 2010
How do you move on?
It seems like a lot of people lately are getting engaged or married. The overarching theme that I hear at engagement parties, and wedding showers and on invitations is the idea that marriage means getting to spend the rest of your life with your best friend.
What a wonderful idea.
Presumably, when two people decide to get married they have things in common. They know each other’s likes and dislikes, favorite foods, favorite movies, personal styles and so forth. But more importantly, these two people are able to identify each other’s smells and the taste of one’s skin. They know what they expect to feel when they touch a favorite body part. If one were to hear the other’s voice at a distance, over the phone or across the way, they know unconsciously that it is them.
Countless times a day I think a thousand variations of “I have to share this with the GF!” when I read or see something that makes me laugh or cry. And I sometimes send her half a dozen emails when I read something that I know she will find interesting.
So when I hear about friends that have been in relationships as long or longer than myself going through the messiest of break-ups or even those that end because “We just aren’t right for each other anymore” I automatically put myself in their shoes and try to figure out what the GF and I can do to avoid their fates.
I understand what it feels like to want to spend the rest of your life with my best friend. And it makes my stomach hurt to think about living my life without her in it. I’ve lost best friends before, and it ain’t fun. I don’t want to go through that again.
When I see my newly single friends bouncing back from a break up, I marvel at how they do it. How do you turn off the “I can’t wait to share this with them” button? How do you forget about this person that meant so much to you? How does one go from sharing the most intimate details of life with a person to never speaking to them again? Call me crazy, but I get attached. Once I’ve shared myself with you, I find it difficult to just forget about all those details and go about my existence without at least wondering about the other person.
Unfortunately, the reality of life is that break-ups happen. People, interests, desires all change. Sometimes we make stupid mistakes that change the course of our lives and relationships. And while I know a break up would not literally kill me, that pain is not one that I relish having. And maybe that’s why I try so hard to keep my relationship together.
Someone once described it (in a movie or TV show, can’t remember which) that you wake up and you feel like a piece of you has died. And you wake up the next day and still feel that way. And finally, a month later, it hurts a little less. And then 2 weeks after that a little less. Til eventually one day you wake up and the pain is dull and you can think of other things.
Moving is a process. No one can pack up their entire lives into boxes and storage units in a day. You always end up with much more than you realized. Some stuff you keep, some stuff you throw out. Sometimes you break your hand moving the couch out the door. But in the end you move. You take one last look in the front door at the now empty space you once lived in and then you shut the door.
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