What is it about telling someone about your breakup that is so cathartic? Or why do I find myself telling random strangers about it? I carefully omit information as to who the actual parties are, to respect their boundaries. Or so I tell myself.
My grandfather and I went to the same undergrad school. When I moved in on campus I moved into a dorm that triggered a strong memory in him. I stayed close to home, since I needed the support of family but the freedom of coming and going as I pleased.
On Sunday nights, I would still go home to do my laundry and eat and steal things like shampoo from my mother’s cabinets. My grandparents lived and still do across the highway. We would often find ourselves there, for dinner. They used to cook for us. And clean up. Hidden among the World War II stories that my grandfather told us, and wrote a book on, was a story that he loved to tell about getting dumped on the front steps of my dorm.
At the time, I pictured him, sitting on the steps, crying about a girl that didn’t want to be exclusive with him. And driving away to wherever he was going. I never asked about this part of the story.
But every time we would meet, he would ask how school was going and recount his tale of heartbreak and pain, akin to being stranded on a raft for two weeks in the South Pacific. I would say things like, “It all happened for a reason, that way you ended up with grandma. And I am here.” Back then, I believed in a certain rationale or meaning for human existence that I question as I age.
Nevertheless, he always wondered about whatever happened to that girl. “She was smart. Smart enough to let me go.”
A few years later, I documented a breakup with my partner of four years. There were SO many break-ups. We spent an entire year breaking up. On the phone. In his car. At his house. At my house. I tried to move to France to casually break-up. That didn’t last.
I photographed and videotaped the calls when I could. I wanted evidence to show that I was in pain. That it was not nothing to me.
We finally broke up after I found someone new. That I really liked. One of his friends saw us in public and asked if he knew I was with this other person? He didn’t. I think he was seeing someone on the side too. But I don’t know how to ask him all of these years later… maybe my mind just made it all up to help me feel better about what I did.
I remember his mom calling me on the phone to ask if I really loved him. We were engaged to be married. Both seeing other people, one of us possibly dealing coke. He was in law school. Telling his friends that the only reason I was with him was because he was going to be a lawyer. And maybe that was true? It’s one other fact that I have to give up, not knowing if it actually happened or if it was a final straw that broke us apart.
So many years later, I called him to ask him and his new partner for cake while I was in town. She was busy. So I met him at a place that we used to go. I was married. To someone else. Who I loved. Deeply. And yet, I was still curious about him. He was all of the good things I remembered. Funny, smart, an amazing storyteller. He was missing one tooth. He had finally finished law school and was a human rights lawyer. There was so much feeling and forgetting for me in that moment. I forgot all the hard times. I forgot the time he punched a wall in front of me. Or wait, was that when I was on the phone with him? I had inspired extreme anger in someone. Maybe I am giving myself too much credit.
I think what actually happened is that these things had to happen for us to move on. We are both, I presume, with good people. I have never met his partner, but from her photos, I like her. She has a kind smile. She is the one who I think he left me for. I cannot be sure. And they seem good together.
I don’t think I could write about all of this with detachment if I was not with someone I really feel right about. The feelings of regret and rejection would be too intense to re-live. But it’s weird. How the people we love shape us. The delight in remembering them. Good and bad. Sometimes horrible.
We also asked people in the past to share their own breakup moments. Here are a few to hopefully make whatever you are going through right now, or have gone through, feel human. Both unique to you and universal.
Do you have a breakup memory you think back on (with or without your consent)?
As always, thanks for being here. I am very grateful to share everything with you.
XO, Carissa
My favorite breakup was when I was 29 with a man (I had known for a long time before we dated) who said, as he was sitting next to me on my couch, "You know, you're everything I've ever wanted in a woman...but I don't want you." I looked at him and said, "If that's how you feel, there's the door." I pointed to it for emphasis. He was shocked that I really wanted him to leave. Where do you go from there? LOL. Of course, once he left, I sobbed. Now, it's just absurd and funny to me. When someone shows you who they are, believe them...the first time. xo
Wow, I loved your story. I appreciate this human aspect that emotions are what shape us and make us who we are today. I think being grateful for the experience and being able to live with it in some way is what really matters in the end