smitten kitten

this post-breakup life has been one surprise after another. thankfully, things are tending towards the upswing.

let me walk you through the stages of post-breakup grief as i experienced them:

1. denial (refusing to accept what had happened, pretending that twisted relationship was worth saving)
2. bargaining (trying to accept blame for more than i was responsible for, trying to change to make him happy, trying to do more than it was in my power to do and do it for the both of us since he was unwilling to make any effort)
3. denial II (saving mementos, pretending like things would magically return to a better place again)
4. depression (so much crying and wallowing)
5. anger (vile hatred for someone you thought you knew, who promised they would never hurt you, who could treat you like detritus and discard you once he was done with you and you weren't satisfying his purposes any more)
6. anger II (seeing your ex-partner wantonly posting pictures of him going camping with a woman, who you suspect was the one he said "he [is] interested in" when he broke up with you... this hurts because: 1. you always wanted to go camping together and you used to talk about it, 2. he brings up the camping trip he planned and you never went on as a pivotal moment in your relationship, 3. it's been how many fucking DAYS since we broke up?! 4. let's be honest, it hurts the most because it looks like he is just fine and moving on so much quicker than you expected him to and the fact he's posting it on facebook has a smidgen of spitefulness to it.)
7. acceptance (you remove him from your friends list in facebook and put him in "acquaintances", block his news feed posts, and remove facebook entirely from your phone. you stop feeling angry and feel a bit sorry that he is so quickly moving on to another woman... you think for a moment about them getting married and having babies and feel the rage rise in your stomach but let it pass because you realize "better her than me" and that you are lucky you got away from that dick bag. you remove him from your phone, you delete his emails, you take all the pictures out of their frames and save them in a box to burn at a later date.)
8. survival mode (clawing my way out of a funk like my life depended on it (it kinda does). applying to jobs like crazy, going to the gym and getting into fighting shape, learning uke and singing until my heart feels happy again, reaching out to friends to buoy me, branching out and meeting new people, consuming literature, news, movies and music, cooking by myself, cleaning furiously, gradually putting all the pieces of my life back together more whole and complete than before. reclaiming my life for myself.)
9. confidence boosting (i didn't realize until after our relationship ended how unhealthy and destructive it was, for my self-esteem, my sense of purpose in life, my sense of self, and my relationships with other people. now that i have, as my dad would say, "cut that cancer out of my life," all the energy i once spent making sure Ben was happy has turned towards making sure i am actually happy. i'm doing things i love again and not worried about being judged for it. i'm finding space to express myself and be happy and meet people without worrying about how to explain it later to someone else. i'm living my life as me rather than as being defined as "Ben's partner." i'm talking to people again and having conversations i care about, rather than trying to exist in a context and parameters dictated down to me by Ben's circumstances. i am meeting so many good people who were previously hidden from me because i was 1. too afraid/not allowed to talk to them; 2. prevented from meeting them because Ben's and my life never allowed for me to grow and reach out to communities i cared about. post-Ben life has seen a wealth of wonderful people, rekindled friendships that had been starved of attention, new friendships that were allowed to flourish once Ben was no longer a hindrance, and most surprisingly of all, a flurry of new romantic encounters that i never would have had the opportunity to explore while tethered to an extremely jealous and possessive but at the same time noncommittal jerk. now that my confidence is back up and i'm happy and free to do what i want, i have seen the difference it makes in my ability to meet people. hopefully it helps me meet people who i want to be around and maybe eventually, help me find someone to love who deserves everything i have to give and will give equally in return.)
10. adventuring (once i rebuild my confidence, which will likely take a long, long time, i hope to challenge myself to go outside my comfort zone and push myself to pursue the life i want, to live without regrets, to live and love furiously)

i'm at the 9th/10th stage right now, i think. the last few weeks i've been making efforts to forget about ben and whatever residual guilt/responsibility i feel. it had been so hard for me to even talk to a guy when we were dating, out of guilt and fear of ben being upset, that dating post-Ben has been an exceptional mental/emotional challenge. even meeting up with a guy just to talk and share food felt scandalous. 

this past weekend i made huge strides in that i flew out to Madison, WI on a whim to meet a guy i started talking to through the internet! OkCupid of all places! craziness! he and i started talking because we both used to be teachers and he works at the company i am currently considering a job with. we somehow really hit it off and he offered to buy my plane ticket out to Madison. if that wasn't crazy enough, i agreed to do it, which is totally unlike me. we spent the weekend together, getting to know each other. he's totally unlike anyone i've ever dated (younger, athletic, my height (ok, a little taller), clean (like, seriously, his place was spotless!), a former business major, has a cute Midwestern accent, totally charismatic and sweet (he can sing! Justin Timberlake songs! swoon!), and really, really into me). we shared desserts the night i got in after he picked me up from the airport, walked around Madison holding hands (i want to pause here for a moment just to illustrate the crazy levels of Stockholm Syndrome i had going on: even holding hands, months after Ben and i have broken up, felt WRONG. just touching another person's hand still felt like i was doing something shameful. that is the ridiculous degree to which i had programmed it into my head that i was Ben's possession, that i belonged to him, that being with other people was an act of betrayal. thankfully, i got over it, but come on, how insane is that!??), went to the farmer's market to buy food to make later that night, looked at apartments for my move, went to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens and saw the butterflies, made dinner together and watched a movie, had brunch, went mini-golfing (where i beat him in the first half of the course, even hitting a hole-in-one on the obligatory windmill hole), bought pots and soil and repotted his plants for his office, went out for a "fancy" date on State Street and went back to his place to fall asleep and wake up early, he held my hand while he drove me to the airport before going to work. 

it was a crazy weekend on so many levels, but the weirdest thing for me to understand is how... good it felt. to be with someone new, exciting, and excited (by me!) and start over. granted, there were a lot of difficult moments when i felt my scars exposed, when i felt guilty or afraid or uncomfortable or sad. there were times when i asked myself what i was doing, when i questioned my motives and commitment, when i questioned his. but to be able to enter into a new situation with another person and be aware of the good that could be, the bad that was, and embrace the opportunity to experience something new was... liberating. i felt like it finally allowed me to shake off the shackles of that last relationship and enter into life with a mind open to being better to myself.

i don't know what the likelihood of that encounter becoming something more is. we may never see each other again. but we shared a weekend together and we were good and we were kind. that is the weird/magical thing i need to constantly have reaffirmed to me: that total strangers can be extremely good to each other. that's what makes love seem so beautiful to me: it turns two total strangers into best friends and partners for life. i don't know what will happen with my friend in Madison, but the fact that we met randomly through the internet and then managed to spend a whole weekend together and were happy doing so endears me so much to the idea of keeping your heart open to anyone you may meet. i no longer fear being alone or never finding another companion who will make me happy. those people abound if you are open to finding them and if your heart is open and courageous enough to be happy. i held onto Ben longer than i should have because i feared i would never be able to find someone else. i never should have let him put me in cages. 

it's a jungle out there

things i never, ever, never ever EVER wanted to be doing with my life:

#1 - join an online dating site.

at first i did it for "research" purposes after hearing this Freakonomics podcast, and then out of curiosity after reading this article. i figured if it's good enough for PJ Vogt, surely it could be good enough for me? (and in all honesty, i thought, if guys like PJ Vogt are using OKCupid, maybe that's where i need to be meeting more eligible, PJ Vogt-like men!) honestly though, i'd never even heard of OKCupid until this podcast, and didn't think people were actually using sites like these to, you know, really date. as soon as i created my profile i felt like i had just set myself up to be trolled.

i figure the internet already brings out the worst in people by granting a veil of anonymity and a low-risk of getting caught for shitty actions and a low accountability to "real" people. but then when you add in the potential for "hook-ups," hundreds of thousands of objectifying men, personal questions about sex, relationships, etc. AND a chat/messaging function? you've pretty much designed THE WORST way i can possibly imagine to meet people. for me at the moment, it still remains a social experiment -- how many guys are interested in me because of the pictures i posted and how many are actually impressed by my work experiences, my interests and my hobbies? i've also been interested to see how race factors into my popularity on OKCupid. so far, i'm surprised that it's been far fewer Asian men and many, many African-American men. like, twice the amount from any other race. lots of young'uns too. and then there was this guy:

what am i, or anyone, supposed to do with that??

i also had a guy try to chat me up and get me to hook up with him and when i said i wouldn't, he proceeded to lecture me about moralizing and basically called me a "stuck up b****." the best part was, about a month later, he tried chatting with me again under a different username (but same picture), and when i ignored him he tried again the next week ("third time's the charm?") i guess even in the digital world of human interaction, a lady just can't get a break from the douchey entitled bros.

all of this to say: i'm angry that this is what's happening. i poured my heart into the last seven years and worked so hard to make another person happy because i thought it's what i wanted and because i thought i couldn't imagine living without this other person. it made me happy to give so much of myself to make someone else happy. then i wake up one day and it's like a switch was turned off, and he became a different person. unable to feel anything, unable to understand what he'd meant to me the last seven years, unable to even look me in the eyes and tell me how his heart has changed, explain what has happened. i look at him now and i feel so distraught and angry, at him for changing into this totally different person who can treat me like such shit, and at myself for letting this happen, for making myself vulnerable and not expecting this could happen one day. every day i wake up and grieve for the person i loved who i feel is now lost to time forever. wherever that person went, i will never see him again, and looking at pictures from the past is such a deep wound in my heart ripped open all over again because i don't understand where that person has gone and know that they've also taken that version of myself with them. i will never be the happy smiling woman in those pictures again either. we're both lost, we've destroyed each other. i used to be excited about the rest of my life with another person, and now i dread the rest of my life spent agonizing forever the doomed happiness of the last seven years.