Men used to be uncomfortable with tax law so they decided to make a Whole New Country. Now they won’t even text you back when you freely offer them pussy.
A million platitudes about new beginnings and independence are going to follow, as this is a tumultuous time in my life. When it comes to love and loss, I believe everyone arrives at the same conclusions from first principles and that’s why platitudes exist. Everyone’s life ebbs and flows in the same direction but at different times and with different circumstances but the outcomes are generally the same. “Time heals all wounds”, “ plenty of fish in the sea”, “better to have loved and lost”, and so on. Unfortunately for all of us, these things are generally true. Time does heal all wounds, you just have to keep going.
This year my step-father passed away and I broke up with my boyfriend of 4 years. One of these things I wanted and one of these things I did not want. The grief is very similar. It is an immense physical feeling of missing. It’s consuming and palpable. The strange part of it is how it comes and goes - from guilt to denial to relief to anger, sometimes in the matter of minutes. When my step-father passed away in January, I was almost bed-ridden with sadness. However, I had to support my mother and help her navigate legalese and mountains of paperwork because within hours of his death someone stole his identity and got access to his accounts. In retrospect, these criminals did us a huge favor by keeping us busy and distracting us from our grief. We were able to focus our anger at them and how fucking poorly designed the system is to fight back against identity theft. Months have passed since then and I am no longer consumed by grief, I actively fought against it and persevered in more ways than I can count. That’s why I look back now and say “wow, those fucking losers are right, time really does heal all wounds, you just have to keep going”
The break-up is another ball game but it is played in the same park. When you initiate a break-up you are weirdly hoping. Hoping that it will all work out somehow not just for you but also for your former partner. There is no hope with death and that’s why the grief of breaking up is driven by immense guilt. You are effectively telling someone: “I will be better than this one day, the only thing holding me back is you.” Breaking someone’s heart in pursuit of your own excellence is crushing and selfish and liberating. As I stated in previous writings, relationships are micro-nations; ripping one apart is the death of the pledge of allegiance you gave to each other. All the inside jokes, rituals, routines come to an end in an instant. It is a million tiny deaths and it’s all your fault.
Can you do this again? And again? You must - you just have to keep going. But all that hope and all the forward-thinking is decimated the moment you enter the dating world. Nothing on earth is more bleak. The oddest part is how the algorithm tells me we all feel the same about it. We all hate ghosting, avoidant behavior, and “HR speak” but everyone keeps doing it. Why? To what end? I feel like I’m losing my mind. Why is everyone doing the same things over and over and expecting different results?
My step-fathers birthday was July 4th. Independence day. New things arise after immense struggle - you just have to keep going.