WHAT I MISS
When the relationship was in its downward spiral – when I saw the bad things out-weighing the good, when I kept telling myself “I love her but I can’t see this working out”– I thought the only thing to do, the only way to feel better, was to call it quits. Quitting isn’t the right word, it’s not a fair word, because quitting assumes we didn’t try. We tried. For over a year we tried to fix things, tried to shore up the weak points in our 3 and a half-year relationship, but when you’re living on a fault line, it doesn’t matter how sturdy the house, eventually things are going to crumble.
We didn’t just try to fix it by being nicer to each other – that was never an issue – or by setting aside “special time” - we didn’t rely on Dr. Phil or volumes of self-help books (though a couple of them came into the mix in the final countdown). No, we went hard-core – counseling. Some would say that marriage counseling before your marriage is not a particularly good sign, but we tried. We tried real hard. We tried to make something work that, in retrospect, couldn’t have worked. Not at this time in our lives. Not now. A conviction in love will make you do things like that, make you try to fit a square peg in a round hole, you just keep pushing and pushing and even though it looks like it could fit, it’s just not making it, you tell yourselves, “WE LOVE EACH OTHER, IT HAS TO FIT” only to find out later, despite the lyrics of countless songs, the lessons of numerous feel-good movies, that Love is NOT all that you need. Love doesn’t soften a square into a circle; it doesn’t sharpen a circle into a square.
The counseling helped, somewhat, but it didn’t provide any quick answers, it really just helped us see the differences we had, who was the circle, who was the square. And throughout the counseling, life happened, bringing its own little twists and turns, ups and downs -“challenges,” as my dad would say. My dad has a way of simplifying things; if someone has chronic illness, financial hardship, marital discord, legal problems, liberal tendencies – they have “challenges” or are “challenged.” That’s what we had, we had challenges. The relationship was over before we could admit it to ourselves, but once we saw it, we accepted it. We had no choice, it was over. But we didn’t quit, we didn’t give up - we lost.
When I was at that point, perched on the precipice, looking down at the relationship that was, the future that may be, the plans that would never come to fruition – it felt very, very dramatic - I couldn’t help but think that things would be better once we accepted that it was over. Sure it would suck, it would be sad, but wouldn’t it be better than the pain we felt? The pressure of squeezing ourselves into a master plan that just wasn’t shaped for us? I knew I’d miss her, miss “us,” but that detached, generic sadness, movie sadness, was all I thought about. I didn’t think about missing the little things, like sleeping in a bed.
You see, she took the bed. The couch. The pots. The pans. The plates. The cups. The glasses. The kitchen table. The matching chairs. The coffee table. The end table. The lamps. Almost everything, almost. She did leave the tv – the one I noted months earlier was on its last leg, much like we were I guess. She also left the love seat, though I think she left that because she didn’t have the room for it, or as a statement - leaving the love seat since the love was gone - but I’m pretty sure she didn’t leave it just so I’d have something to sit on.
Truth be told, most of the stuff was hers, originally. We did what most couples do when they move in together – we consolidated. Got rid of redundancies. For example - I had a bed, she had a bed, we only needed one bed, so we kept the better one and got rid of the other. In that case, we got rid of my bed. In fact, in each and every case, we got rid of my stuff. And that’s alright because her stuff was better than my stuff. But after living together for a year and a half, I’d stopped seeing things as “hers” or “mine” and had seen them as “ours.” Until, that was, she left, and I watched all of “our stuff” revert to “her stuff.”
Even some stuff that was truly ours (the kitchen set, the head board, the end table, the lamps, and the step stool) truly, legally, actually “ours,” purchased by us, for us: through the magic of relationship explosion those became hers too. Was I a bit angry that she took it all? Maybe. I did tell her to take whatever she wanted, whatever she needed. I was magnanimous that way. Thing is, she didn’t need much at the time, she was putting it all in storage and living with friends until she found a place. So she really didn’t need the kitchen set, or the bed or the step stool for that matter. What she needed, I guess, was to sever what was once hers from what was mine, and if that left me with nothing, so be it.
I wasn’t shocked when I came home to see what was left and what was missing. The living room looked much like it did the day we moved in, except for the feeble television set and the old “antique” desk which I bought for her at the flea market she dragged me too so she could refurbish it and make it a new, unique addition to our living space. That stayed, no longer new, not so unique and never, ever refurbished.
The bedroom was more disturbing. Only dust balls remained where the bed had once anchored the room. And the wall - there was the wall. When we’d moved in she’d gathered the best photos of ourselves, from our lives before we’d met, and made a sort of collage of the framed pictures on the wall. When she left, she took her photos, leaving a patchwork pattern of my life’s pictures interspersed with the ghostly empty spaces created by her leaving. A friend christened the wall “the Archipelago of Loneliness.” I didn’t take it down.
She left the inflatable mattress. That was good, because sleeping on a love seat is no fun. Then again, sleeping on an inflatable mattress every night is no party either. Those things are meant for camping, for short visits by spry young people, not an every night deal for a thirty-year-old. No matter how bad our relationship was, I didn’t think ending it would require me to blow up my bed every night. It’s an interesting feelingto blow up your bed, alone, late at night, and then to wake, the next morning, with your ass hitting the hard wood floor because the mattress has deflated – by at least 50%, every morning, without fail. Waking up that way, looking up at the Archipelago of Loneliness, I couldn’t help feeling deflated myself. Deflated and lost. And more than just a little bit sad. Not just “I feel sad,” but sad i.e., “this guy’s sad.”
It could have been worse; sleeping on an inflatable mattress was not as sad as sleeping with an inflatable girl. Although I could have done with the company.
Eating at home changed quite a bit, too. I still had groceries but I couldn’t do much cooking – as she took all the pots and pans. Even if I could have cooked, I didn’t have any plates, or any glasses. I guess I could have sat and eaten out of my hands. Thing was, I couldn’t really sit anywhere; she took the kitchen table and the chairs. As far as the love seat, sure, guess I could sit on that, but no coffee table, no end table, no nothing. So I didn’t cook. On the bright side, I didn’t have to worry about cleaning the dishes anymore.
But the break up didn’t only take away stuff I missed, it introduced me to new things, fun things, like: canceling the joint cell phone contract; paying off and picking up the orphaned wedding dress; finding the answer to the age old question – “can you return a wedding ring?” ; changing the joint auto insurance; canceling the renters insurance; canceling the wedding reception in Puerto Vallarta, only to hear that cancellations weren’t allowed; spending a long weekend in Puerto Vallarta and finding out that its called the “off-season” for a reason and that having a small resort practically all to oneself is not what its cracked up to be. But these diversions, fun as they were, didn’t change the fact that I missed everything else and that what I really missed, most of all, no matter how I fought it, was her.
It took me a number of weeks to realize that. Once I got past the shock, the anger, the other residual bullshit that rises from the depths of a failed relationship, the “challenges,” – the fun! – what I really missed was her.
I know the relationship ended because it had to. We didn’t cheat on each other or treat each other badly or do anything like that; it just wasn’t going to work. And I know that, I’m sure of it. Doesn’t change the fact that I miss her. I miss her more than the bed, more than the kitchen table, more than the couch. I miss not being able to call her at any time – because she won’t take my calls at any time. I miss not knowing that there was someone, not just anyone – her - waiting for me at the end of the day.
And that’s the kick in the pants. When things were bad and I knew it had to end, I couldn’t imagine just how much I’d miss her. How lonely things would be. How I have to fight every day, all the time, to keep from calling and trying to “work it out.” Cause it can’t be worked out. Would it be great to see her? It would. And for a couple of moments, days, weeks, maybe we could convince ourselves that things would work out, until the next tremors came and the cracks resurfaced. It’s like Pet Cemetery - you think you can bring your loved ones back from the dead, you think everything will work out fine, but the fact is you can’t. Dead is dead. Gone is gone. One minute you think you’re back in love and the next minute the love of your life is eating your brains – or something like that. I can’t make the “let’s get back together” call. I can’t do that to myself. Can’t do it to her. Really, can’t do it to her, and I don’t think she’d take my call anyway. Which is best, saves us both the heartache. You know the saying; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? Here’s a better one: If it is broken, and you’ve tried to fix it, and it can’t be fixed … it can’t be fixed. Let it go.
So, I let it go. But I miss her. I miss us. I miss it. I’m dealing with it. Still going to counseling, but not couples counseling – as there is no couple. “Just me” counseling. Getting my head together, getting “in touch” with my loneliness … you know, fun stuff. Realizing it’s ok to miss her, it’s ok to feel bad, that hopefully I’ll stop feeling bad after a while but that I’ll probably never stop missing her. I’m sure of that part. Sure of it. Least I’m not blowing up my bed any more. And as far as blowing up dates, I’m not that lonely. Yet.
