Breaking Habits

So the post break-up heart/brain is a jumble of…..well….everything. Right after, I mean in the few horrifying seconds/minuets/hours after, you notice nothing. (I guess this would be a good time to say when I say “you” in this blog, most of the time I mean “me”, that is until I get to the interviewing bit.) Anyway, nothing. You notice nothing. Whether you’re sleepy, whether you’re hungry, whether you like what you’re watching on TV or not, whether you need to pee. Nothing.  But then you go to bed. And you know what happens after you go to bed, you wake up. And after you wake up, when the next day finally gets here, then you notice everything.

At first it starts with the physical things. The little presents they got you. The ticket stubs in the bottom of your purse from the last movie you went to together, their tooth brush. Just the little things your relationship forgot to take with it when it walked out the door. And it doesn’t matter how many pictures you stuff under your bed or how many bracelets you throw to the top of your bookshelf, there is always something ells to find, another bit of trash that isn’t really trash to dig out of your pocket.

Then you start noticing your little couple habits. You start looking at your phone expecting to see something there and then you realize what you’re looking for and that it’s not going to be there. Something funny will happen and you’ll think “oh my gosh! I have to tell….” And then you think, “Oh wait there’s no one to tell.”

This brings me to that subject of my first for real’s blog post. To borrow a phrase from Grays Anatomy “_______ is (or was in this case) my person.” So I think this vague statement is pretty easy to understand, but it has been pointed out to me that sometimes what I think is clear is….less than clear. Your “person” is the one you text threw out the day, the first one to hear your good news, the one you call when you get bed news. In short, they are the ones that witness your life first hand. Now, I know that some one’s “person” doesn’t have to be a boyfriend or girlfriend. Hey, someone doesn’t even have to one person, but that still doesn’t change how empty and lost you feel when one of your persons is gone. It’s like not knowing what to do with your hands when you stop smoking, or phantom itches people get after they have their legs amputated.

So what makes just a regular ol’ person YOUR person, and what do you do after they’re gone? What about thoughs people who never get persons? These are the questions that pop into my head as I stare at my phone’s empty inbox.

                In my search for answers to these questions I’ve done what any twenty year old would do. Talk to her friends. Silly, I know sense it’s not like any of us are experts in love and we all say pretty much the same thing, but hey, that’s what we do. So I’ve talked to many a people, most of them girls, and one actually going through a break up herself.  

                So like I said, everyone pretty much said the same thing, just in different ways. One of my friends, lest call her Lizzy, explained it beautify and analytically. Basically, no two people are “perfect for each other” so we have to change out of necessity to become more compatible. Sure we could stop these changes if we wanted but don’t want to stop the change, we want to stay together. These changes can be things like what side of the bed you sleep on or what type of music you listen to. Or it can be something bigger, like how you actually have conversations. Ultimately (and this is my opinion here, but I think Lizzy would agree with me) all these little to medium size habits add up to one big changed world perception, but that’s a topic for another entry.

                “So,” I asked, “do you think we can help these changes? Or do they just happen?”

                “Well,” she said, “I believe in free will. So you could stop the changes if you wanted, but if you want the relationship to work I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

                Then I laughed at her and told her how clinical she sounded. Sense our conversation a few days ago I’ve been trying to decide if I agree with the whole “we can choose to stop” thing. And the answer I have come up with is…., kind of. Lame I know, but hear me out.  If these habits that we develop when we are couples are still choices we were choosing to make they wouldn’t be that hard to break when our “we” becomes a “me”. No, I think in the beginning of a relationship you start taking a look around and thinking about what it will take to make it work. For example, when I was dating my most recent ex we lived in different cities and I don’t have a car. We couldn’t always see each other on the weekends and talking on the phone was expensive. BUT texting was free. For two years my cell phone was glued to my hand. I would check it every two minutes and my inbox would always be full. I made the choice to become a text-a-holic. Now that I’m single I’m still checking my phone about as many times as Glee covers Barbra Streisand. I even know why I’m checking my phone. I even think to myself “Kayte, nothing is there,” but I still do it. I still can’t leave my phone in the other room and I know why. I know how this habit started, but I’m saying if it was something I was completely aware of it would be easier to stop or change. At some point in your relationship these “habits” stop being habits and start being compulsions. You start doing things without noticing, making choices without really choosing. And really that’s what makes some relationships work. But….I’m not in a relationship am I?

                So I guess the real question I should be asking is, “How do I break these habits?” Well, if I asked my mother (which I didn’t) the psychologist, she would say the only real way to break a habit is to replace it with something ells. But how do you replace a person? Re-bounding? That sounds like an incredibly bad idea. No, no to re-bounding. I have taken the common sense approach instead of the “I NEED SOMEONE NOW!” approach. I knew before I pushed the final nail into my relationship coffin that the only way I would be able to survive this would be to have a support system. If I sent fifty texts to him each day I knew I would need a friend that I could send fifty texts to (or five friends I could send ten texts to). If every other Friday we went to the same BBQ joint I knew I would need a group of girlfriends and a different restaurants to go to EVERY Friday night.

                So there we are, the easy answer. Here’s the uneasy question. What about the habits that aren’t really habits but memories? Like how I’ll never be able to go to another Medieval fair without feeling like he is there with me, or how I can’t watch How I Met Your Mother because I can’t watch it without thinking about him? What can you do about that? I’m sorry to say it’s another lame answer that everyone already knows. Time, give it time and the pain will become a memory and having memories won’t be so painful. Wow, that sounds like a fortune cookie (which, coincidently, also reminds me of my ex. oh the irony).  

Explanations, Goals, and Promises

I have recently gone thru a break up. Big surprise I know. I’m sure one third of these blogs are about break ups.

I would like to take this time to tell you that I have written and erased the next line of this blog eight times. Everything I write now seems to come out wrong. It always has a sarcastic jaded flavor to it, and honestly I hate it. I didn’t use to be this person. This person who rolls her eyes and snickers. Well that’s not true. I’ve always had a bit of a snarky streak, but now I find myself ignoring the solutions and possibilities. Laughing at hope and faith, and that’s not the person I am. This was happening before the break up mind you.

 I use to look out the window at night, stare at the moon or stars or something like that and think to myself “I wonder if ‘the one’ is staring at the same moon right now, wondering about me.” But now, not only am I embarrassed to tell the internet how goosh and romantic I am, but I’m actually wondering if there is anyone staring at that moon. And now I feel silly for saying THAT because OF CORSE there’s someone staring at that moon! But time and trial have taught me that’s it’s not as simple as two people finally finding each other.

When you’re talking about love there is just no good way to deal with it. It’s messy because you’re dealing with two people, and even if thoughs two people love each other they’re still people. People change, people grow, grow together, grow apart. People can be selfish, but they can also be self-sacrificing. Some people will chain themselves to a sinking ship and beg others to save them even though they are the ones that have the lock cutters. You get it, it’s complicated.

So I guess that question I’m going to be asking in this blog is what is love, how does it thrive, why does it fail, and how can we hold on to it? I’ll try to ask a question and answer it via interviews, stories, etc, once a week (probably Wednesday). Maybe once a month I’ll try to post a short story I’ve worked on (because I need motivation to work on stuff like that). If anyone reads this feel free to ask your own questions and give your own opinions. So here we go. My very public attempt to get over something very painful. Wish me luck and enjoy the ride.