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3.01.02
I've been remembering what it's like to think you're going to actually die of a broken heart. Ah, the power of pure boy-related unhappiness. I've spent time recently with a girl who reminds me of me 15 years ago, and I smile inside my head when I see the raw force of her emotions. When I find my backwards time machine and start my life over again to fix all the mistakes, I will skip over anybody who sent me into a funk any longer than one (1) day. I know the common wisdom is that if you want the swooping highs you have to take the risk of crashing lows, too, but I think I'd redo everything relatively risk-free.
This is assuming that when you start your life over again you don't just make the exact same choices because you are locked in by the structure of your own personality.
I was shocked recently when a friend of mine confided that she has never been in love, because I've been in love DOZENS of times. I tend to fall in love fairly easily. The mushy feelings, I find, are not at all hard to come by. What was hard was finding somebody who was willing to get down in the mudpit of life and wrestle with me to get through the tough stuff. I always think every conflict is the end of the world, and I enter flight mode. Enter Bob, a really great communicator, who never lets the sun go down on unresolved conflict, and never lets it get all out of proportion inside my head. I can sulk for days and weeks and months, but he'll have none of it. He will bother me until I talk, or yell, or cry, but he won't let me stew. This strength of his to resolve things is one of the big huge foundation blocks holding our marriage together.
But back to broken hearts. I always had a multi-faceted sadness after a breakup. Upon reflection, I think missing the former boyfriend was a minor factor. And even the humilitation and horror of rejection was not the chief cause for emotional meltdown. I think it was this; this is what I think:
I think I always have romantic dreams inside my head for what will happen next with someone, and then next, and then next, and I feel insecure when my dreams, which at some impractical point have morphed into actual plans, get messed up.
Every time Boy X, Y, or Z has walked off the Canvas of the Future and it's blank again, you have to go back to your paintbox and figure out what you're going to paint now. I know we're not supposed to be this way, to think the canvas is blank if no romantic relationship is on it, but ask around, and I think most people feel the lack.
When Dave Lootens broke up with me in college, Suzy Cobb, World's Best Friend, knocked on my bedroom window when I wouldn't answer the phone or front door. When I finally let her in, she had icecream and pizza, and let me cry and spill my guts over a period of about 3 weeks, at which point she sensibly pointed out that there were other fish in the sea, and that I needed to move on, and perhaps I would consider uncurling myself from the fetal position on my bed and going outside for a walk.
I can barely remember Dave now, but I will always remember Suzy's kindness, and the very wonderful feeling of waking up one morning and realizing my heart was, in fact, still intact.
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