Anyone who's seen the first movie knows the quote I'm about to reference. "Why is it we're willing to write our own vows, but not our own rules." Throughout that entire movie, that is the one moment that stood out to me. Yes, Charlotte crapping her pants was absolutely hysterical, watching Carrie rise from the ashes of a broken life was beautiful and heartwarming, seeing Miranda run to Steve on the bridge made me bawl my eyes out, and yes, I nearly peed my pants when Samantha threw sushi at Smith. But that one moment at the end, that made an impact on me.
Everyone has been through a breakup, everyone knows it sucks. My most recent experience has definitely been the hardest to get over. You spend enough time with someone, they grow to be a substantial part of your life. Then you get serious and talk about the future. You make plans, you talk about a home and a family, where you're going to spend the holidays. You save every movie stub, every letter, every token of devotion, so that thirty years from now, when your children are rifling through the attic and they stumble upon a nondescript little box, you can recap the story of your love.
Then the unthinkable happens. The fights become more frequent. It's never any one person's fault, it's simply a matter of life revealing that despite your most fervent desires, it just isn't meant to be. You cry, you vent, you get angry, you attempt to get over it. Then after some time, the epiphany comes. It simply wasn't meant to be. It's not a negative reflection on either person, neither of you fell worse for the ware, if anything, you grew from the experience. You come to appreciate all you learned from the relationship, and when people ask what happened, you reply with a simple, "It just didn't work out. They're a great person, and we're just exploring different paths."
The only remnants from the relationship are kept in a nondescript box that you were saving for your kids to rifle through. What now? Do you throw away all the movies you watched together? Toss your favorite sweater just because it's what you wore on your first date? Do you avoid going to the best coffee house within a twenty mile radius because it's where you two talked about kids for the first time?
No. You don't. You reclaim all your favorite things as your own. Take back the power from the broken relationship and realize that you had a life before him and you'll have a life after him. All your favorite things were there prior to him entering your world. Or as Carrie Bradshaw so eloquently said, why can't we make our own rules? And if Serendipity didn't love me enough, this article popped up on my Yahoo page, thus validating my belief in recapturing my world.
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/breakup-recovery-101-five-rules-you-must-follow-520785/
High five, you are awesome.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Three Years Later: An Open Letter...
I never really understood the phrase, 'waking up on the wrong side of the bed,' because I figured, it's a bed, the limited spacial dimensions leave very little room for there actually to be a quote-unquote 'wrong side.' That being said, I woke up in a very weird mood today. I was fortunate enough not to have to work until noon, leaving me plenty of time to ignore an alarm and still wake up with time to meander about my kitchen, peruse breakfast options, watch two episodes of early "Saved By the Bell," and the beginning of "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2," and still have time to shower and get ready for work. Throughout all of this, something just felt, for lack of a better term, off.
Almost nine hours, three emergencies, countless lognotes, and god only knows how many 'Thank you for calling, this is Dori, how can I help you' responses later, I still felt off. It wasn't until I was driving home with my ipod on shuffle, randomly skipping through songs, hoping to find some sort of connection to the myriad of music choices when it finally hit me. Dispatch's "The General" came on and it all started to make sense.
It's been three years since he left and part of me acknowledges the loss, misses him, and learns from the mess he left. The other part of me is angry, still confused, wishing we were closer, wondering if we were that there might have been something I could have done. Nonetheless, I drive the fifteen minutes and how many seconds ride home, trying to keep it together enough to maintain control of the car, all the while hoping my eyeliner doesn't smudge and cause my eye to burn.
Despite my history, and despite the ability to understand how a person's thinking can get to the point of "it's better this way," I don't get it. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how alone you feel, there is always at least one person who will miss you. One person will be hugely and deeply impacted by your absence. And that one person has the unbearable task of feeling plagued that they didn't do more. Feeling like they're abandoning you when they move on with their lives. Feeling guilty that they have a life to move on in. You left. You made that choice. Three years later and we're still coping with that. Thirty years later and we'll still be coping with it.
Immediately following, there's the obvious outpouring of affection and sympathy, people desperate to find a connection to you to feel like they're a part of something greater than they're own meaningless worlds. Everyone who was ever even remotely near you recounts some story. "The Ho Trap," Dance Co., "The Pit," your brown jacket, your all too perfect smile. I remember pennies spelling out "I <3 U" outside my door. I remember creepy "Seven days..." phone calls after watching "The Ring" in the mezzanine in BT freshman year. I remember watching you play in the snow, running up a mountain the plows made in the back parking lot of Mark Hopkins, laughing like a little kid in a snowball fight. I remember trying so hard not to forget my lines when you were stage manager of Emily's senior director class presentation of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." I remember you, beautiful, delicious, sweetly mischievous you.
I know how it feels to think that nothing you do is right. I know how it feels to think that it would all be better if... I know how it feels. But I'm still here. I'm still fighting. No matter the pain, no matter the sadness, no matter how god awful it hurts, there is always a reason to keep fighting. What I will never understand is why you stopped, why you gave up. If you saw how many people came to your memorial... If you saw how many lives you really touched... If you could understand how much you truly meant..
Three years later and I'm still trying to understand.
Almost nine hours, three emergencies, countless lognotes, and god only knows how many 'Thank you for calling, this is Dori, how can I help you' responses later, I still felt off. It wasn't until I was driving home with my ipod on shuffle, randomly skipping through songs, hoping to find some sort of connection to the myriad of music choices when it finally hit me. Dispatch's "The General" came on and it all started to make sense.
It's been three years since he left and part of me acknowledges the loss, misses him, and learns from the mess he left. The other part of me is angry, still confused, wishing we were closer, wondering if we were that there might have been something I could have done. Nonetheless, I drive the fifteen minutes and how many seconds ride home, trying to keep it together enough to maintain control of the car, all the while hoping my eyeliner doesn't smudge and cause my eye to burn.
Despite my history, and despite the ability to understand how a person's thinking can get to the point of "it's better this way," I don't get it. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how alone you feel, there is always at least one person who will miss you. One person will be hugely and deeply impacted by your absence. And that one person has the unbearable task of feeling plagued that they didn't do more. Feeling like they're abandoning you when they move on with their lives. Feeling guilty that they have a life to move on in. You left. You made that choice. Three years later and we're still coping with that. Thirty years later and we'll still be coping with it.
Immediately following, there's the obvious outpouring of affection and sympathy, people desperate to find a connection to you to feel like they're a part of something greater than they're own meaningless worlds. Everyone who was ever even remotely near you recounts some story. "The Ho Trap," Dance Co., "The Pit," your brown jacket, your all too perfect smile. I remember pennies spelling out "I <3 U" outside my door. I remember creepy "Seven days..." phone calls after watching "The Ring" in the mezzanine in BT freshman year. I remember watching you play in the snow, running up a mountain the plows made in the back parking lot of Mark Hopkins, laughing like a little kid in a snowball fight. I remember trying so hard not to forget my lines when you were stage manager of Emily's senior director class presentation of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." I remember you, beautiful, delicious, sweetly mischievous you.
I know how it feels to think that nothing you do is right. I know how it feels to think that it would all be better if... I know how it feels. But I'm still here. I'm still fighting. No matter the pain, no matter the sadness, no matter how god awful it hurts, there is always a reason to keep fighting. What I will never understand is why you stopped, why you gave up. If you saw how many people came to your memorial... If you saw how many lives you really touched... If you could understand how much you truly meant..
Three years later and I'm still trying to understand.
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