After the Love is Gone...

Getting over a break-up...everything I need to know has already been discussed at the bar: It’s Nicole’s birthday, so naturally she will be at a real bar conversing and of course, drinking. Dutiful friend that I am, I volunteered to guest post on her blog, so she could enjoy the celebrating the day  on which she was birthed. Lucky friend that I am, I get to talk to Nicole whenever I want, which means that I don’t have to wait until each Friday to get her insightful and helpful life wisdom. Herein lies the rub: if I go to her for normal-healthy person talk, then what the hell am I going to write about on her how to be a normal-healthy person blog? Sweet patient friend that she is, she told me to just write about whatever I was going through. So I did that, and in doing so I realized that conversing at the bar for the past year has taught me much more that I thought. Wrote a blog about it, like ta hear i, hear it go...........

Okay, so it is over. No, for real this time. Their toothbrush went in the wastebasket. You have untagged yourself in Facebook photos and your status has changed. You got a new attitude. You’ve signed up for Zumba and/or have ordered P90X to get back down to your bantam weight. You have changed their name in your phone to “NO,” and you are now ready to converse at the bar.

Yes y’all, that is the sound of one door closing and another one opening...into singledom. Now for those of you who not only advocate, but are capable of the clean break (up), God love you. You probably  Elizabeth Kubler-Ross-ed your way through a healthy grieving process and are currently conversing at the bar where everyone knows your name. Gold Star. For others, ending things can be a bit messier and complicated. In my case, after breaking up, I spent an additional year languishing in the ambiguous purgatory of not being able to let go, commonly known as staying friends. It’s great at first; you get all of the perks of being in a relationship without any of the responsibility. You know it can’t last forever, but there is still goodwill and fondness there and truth be told, it's a helluva lot better than being alone. But then the smallest thing sends you into a PTSD flashback and you slam head first into the realization that your differences are, in fact, irreconcilable. It's at that moment that you realize that it is over like cross-colors and you don’t give a rat’s ass who is going to bathe the dog. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, go directly to stage 5. It’s time to move on.

Nature abhors a vacuum and that is precisely what is left at the end of a relationship. You share secrets, laughs, cries, dreams, inside jokes, and sexytimes with someone and then they just aren’t there anymore. Nature don’t like that. So it goes all honey badger on your ass and starts stirring up stuff for you to fill that space with, like lots and lots of feelings. My ex isn’t a bad dude. Once upon a time, he was everything I needed and wanted. And just because someone doesn’t love you the way you need doesn’t mean they don’t love you the best they can. In the end, he just ended up not being the man for me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t righteously miss him sometimes. No point in denying it. Denial didn’t work for me the first eleventy times I tried it, so I might as well go ahead and put on my big girl panties and suit up for a game of dealing with my feelings, which means being honest about them but also means not making more of them than what they are. So I don’t. I just feel my feelings, send him light, love, and well-wishes and keep it pushing...except for those times when I’m re-angry and I want a second chance at saying what I should said that time he did that thing, didn’t do that thing, said that mess, shoulda said what he didn’t...blah blah blah. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve gotten some crazy looks having argument mulligans with him by myself in the car. The lesson there: People need to mind their own G.D. business when I’m trying to work my stuff out in the car. That and we broke up. All that disappointment, all those misunderstandings, all those arguments lead us exactly to where we are supposed to be which is where we are which is NOT TOGETHER.  Point is: ruminating is bad whether it is angry, sad, or wistful. It keeps you trapped in the same emotional space and going in circles like an ever rolling wheel without a destination real. Or an ever spinning top whirling around til you drop. See, we already heard that song. Where the remote at?

So now I’m single, forilla. Now what? Well funny you should ask because I’ve been asking myself the same doggone thing and the answer I keep coming back to is that it is time to mingle! Yes, my friends. I have to get back in the saddle and start dating. This is not something to which I am looking forward. You have to cut a swath through the jungle of young whipper-snappers, old cat-daddies, posers, losers, insufferable asses, and the irrevocably damaged. Then when you finally reach the pool of acceptable candidates, you have to actually date. What’s your favorite food? What do you do for fun? Have you ever been to Vegas? Where’d you go to school? Would you ever have a threesome? Do you like the Olive Garden? I mean seriously, you’ll find yourself 2 feet up a bull's ass with that sh!*%. Plus, you gotta get the stepladder out the closet so you can reach up on the high shelf where you think you put the box that had your game in it. Now you have to smile, flirt, be nice and friendly, chat folks up, laugh at dumb-ass jokes, and explain why he can’t have your number even though he bought you a drink. Good God, just thinking about it is making me want to revisit being friends. If anything, I know I’m in for many a conversation that will begin with, “Gurrrrrrrrrrllllllllll.” The lesson here: To put myself out there without agenda and with the singular intention of just being open to the experience. If I’m not trying to catch anything in particular then I won’t be mad when I have to throw something back. And if I can successfully do that, then hopefully I’ll end up with an experience more valuable than just gentleman’s company; I will have moved on. I will have started a new chapter that is yet unwritten.

Now fast forward like Mr. Wizard did when he and the awkward kid in the glasses and topsiders would set up the experiment and then he would send the kid “away” and they would cut to “much later” when the kid came back but really it was only long enough for them to switch out the old experiment for the one where the baking soda had already done its thing. Ok? So yeah, play like its Mr. Wizard.

I went on a date. Now in all fairness, I didn’t expect that to happen so soon. I fully expected to have to pay my back-on-the market-dues by having to wade through my share of jherri curls, cheesy pick up lines, and gold teeth. But, in the spirit of being open, I gave someone a chance that I otherwise wouldn’t have, and hadn’t the four other times he tried to get to know me in twice as many years. Guess what! I had a great time. And now we’ve gone out 1.5 more times and I’ve learned a few more things:

1) I am not ready for a relationship. Relationships are work and my relationship muscles are fatigued. Commitment is so much more than exclusivity and I don’t have the energy for it. Which brings me to....

2) I actually, honestly, no joke, don’t have an agenda, for the first time, like, ever. I am completely liberated from feeling invested in any specific outcome. Fancy that! Maybe we’ll fizzle, maybe we’ll end up friends, maybe there is something there, who knows.

3) I’d like to get to know this guy...very slowly. I’m curious to know who he is, and so far I’ve enjoyed finding out. And MOST importantly...

4) I still got it :)

See Nicole, when you talk in my good ear, I actually be listening to your healthy-normal-person-therapy talk. Happy Birthday Girl!