Recently, some experiences conspired to teach me, the truth of just how hard break ups can be. At the start of last Winter, myself and one of my partners broke up, this was after three great years together. Now let me say right off the bat, that it was a genuinely mutual break up. Our relationship had definitely run its course, and for our mutual happiness we needed to part, while we were still caring for one another. The reality was, that if we had forced ourselves to continue, we would have simply wound up hating one another. So, everything happened for the best.
Not that those facts made our relationships end even the slightest bit easier. The fact is that any break up, whether you still genuinely care for the other person or not will be almost unbearably painful. The fact that we lived together and continued to do so for another week, only made it doubly so. Actually for that week, we drove my other partner quite mad with out constant crying and general moping about.
But that’s not what this blog is about. Everyone knows that breaking up and thus losing the love of someone else, hurts, that is just a fact of life.
What this blog is about is how the other things you lose, can hurt almost as much. I’m speaking here about the plans, the home, the things which had been integral parts of your daily life. And worse still, those things you’d never got the chance to have together, but had always looked forward to.
After three years my two partners and I had built up a plan for our lives. It included someday building a beautiful house for the three of us, a cross between a modern interpretation of a Roman villa and a Norse longhouse. The plan also included silly little things like a holiday in Iceland, a small internet business building custom PC casings, looking after one another as we grew old. You know, being happy.
All of those ideas, hopes and dreams are at best now on an extended hold. I mean of course they could still be done and some probably will happen. But I am left wondering if they will have the same joy, the same sparkle that they might otherwise have had? Regardless, thinking about the things we had planned, that now we will never do together makes my chest ache, every time.
But in a break up if your relationship was good you will lose a lot of other things. You will probably lose an entire other family. I did, I was very fond of the elder of her two brothers, and I had eagerly looked forward to getting to know her other brother, as well as her mom and dad. My ex lost out as well of course. She simply adored my mother, and the sentiment was very much mutual. My dog, who back then had been our dog, for example was still a fairly little puppy when we ended. She hasn’t seen Winter since and that can’t be pleasant. I know how much I miss the furball when I don’t see her for just a single day. She also lost most of her relationship with my other partner. She lost the home we had found here in Ireland for us all, when she still lived in London. So did we a few weeks later, a place that big was simply unsupportable with just two of us.
This is all by way of a context for what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. The loss of one of my best friends from my life, a friend who had also been my lover and my slavegirl, has left me thinking about how transient everything in my life really is. Some of my friends, people I see as family, will drift out of my life. My beautiful puppydog Winter by virtue of her species will only live 17ish years. Loves and lovers will drift in and out of my life. And worst of all as I get older I’ll start being called to attend more funerals than weddings.
But do you know what?
That’s alright. I’m ready for this stage of my life to start. When I met my ex she was lost and broken. I was still a little naive and unseasoned as an adult. None of that is true of either of us anymore. We both grew from our time together. We both left our relationship better and stronger than when we entered it. We changed each other, all three of us.
The thing about change is that it’s natural, change is actually okay. It comes from gaining and from losing and I’m happy that things change, ’cause maybe when they change my life will get even better. I like better. It makes me happy.
My Random Ruminations. 