drowned like little dolphins caught in a fishnet.

[erika]

The end of a relationship is the end of promises.

Day to day life is full of promises, spoken & un: 'I'll get the trash later', "Sure, I'll wash the dishes", "I'm going to the grocery store tomorrow". A note on the refrigerator reminding you to call someone back is a promise, as is the schedule your boss gives you when you work retail.

Lying in someone's arms as you drift off to sleep is a promise. Hugging someone goodbye is a promise. Loving someone is a promise, damnit, and so were all the words that added up over the days, months, years: "I'll see you later"; "yes, I want kids"; "Let's move in together"; "I'll see you soon. I promise."

And so the end of a relationship is admitting that when you said "I'll always love you", it was with an implicit until I don't. And now you love 'em, now you don't.

The end of a relationship is divorce after "'til death do you part". It is saying "as long as our love shall last", instead.

---

Of the two paths a break-up can take, I may have a slight preference for angry versus amicable. In the long run, angry is easier.

Breaking up angry is clean. You hate the bastard, you never want to see them again. You don't return the miscellaneous CDs, sweaters, and letters that they were stupid enough to leave behind—you burn them in a ritual that involves two of your closest girlfriends.

Breaking up amicably is exchanging forwarding addresses. Breaking up amicably is knowing that you're allowed to drop them a line, see how they're doing, and that doing so will set back your grieving for the relationship a good two weeks.

Breaking up amicably is meaning it when you say Let's be friends, and then regretting it later.

Breaking up amicably is an autopsy that reveals there was no cancer after all. If there was no cancer, why did you die?

If you don't hate me, why did you leave me?

And do I, should I even care?

Comments

[mongrel-radio.livejournal.com]

All those promises, all those sweet little everythings, are what bother me the most. You think it will last, think forever is not an overstatement, and when it ends, you are left with those words, to say again to someone else. Then it will die and repetition ensues. After a while the 'I love you's and 'You are the one's and 'You are my everything's become trite, meaningless. Motions of the lips and exhalations of air, no more. That doesn't make them lies, but they begin to lack the weight that they once did. Remember when you were young and love was new, those words were treasures, nothing could match their importance; now...though the feelings may be true, the words themselves are almost a joke.

I don't know...I'm sorry my comment could not be more positive, but you know me better than that. I'd rather give you someone to suffer with than tell you it's okay. Why? I'm not a fucking liar, that's why.

Still, life does go on, for good or ill. So does love. Just hang in there. I can't give you a good reason why you should except that patience pays off. Suffering pays off. Trust me.

Take it easy. I love you, and if you need to bullshit/vent on a more personal level, such could always be arranged.

[thineownself.livejournal.com]

But breaking up amicably at least does not force you to wonder if you are absolutely incapable of making reliable judgments of other people -
after an angry breakup you hate the bastard, you never want to see them again, but suddenly you don't trust yourself anymore to decide whether you like somebody or who might be good for you and who might be worth dedicating any emotional energy to, and only think you just wasted far too much of your precious lifetime on somebody who did not deserve a second of it. That doesn't exactly feel very good.

[willbloom.livejournal.com]

I've been hearing this in my head all weekend, and I agree with it mostly, but thineownself makes a valid point, too. How can you trust yourself not to make the same mistakes over again? How can you trust yourself to know when you're in a bad place, and not to let the another trample you again?

I don't know. It's far too confusing.

[willbloom.livejournal.com]

"the another"

huh.

Note to self: stop editing mid-sentence.