The sadness would come for obvious reasons. One year without a fiance, without a house I myself had found and was a vagina's hair away from owning, and without the pain of living a lie. But instead it is that feeling of duty; I owe it to myself to write this, to purge the final emotions and/or thoughts I have of the collective memories Ken embodied. No better way to do it than a blog, right? Right.
Now, we all know how I am a fan of analogies. It's just who I am; someone who thinks he is deeper than he really is and doesn't have a problem shaking a finger at that fact. I would like to take this opportunity to liken the end of the relationship to that of a bomb. Nuclear, atomic, concussive... whatever. Well not really concussive because that would entail there was no fire and to say there was no fire would be to imply that no one got burnt. And I burnt some bitches. Just the charm of me being me (c: Off we go.
flash [flash]
noun
1. a brief, sudden burst of bright light.
I think the flash happened a while before the actual break up but to be certain in that logic would be a mistake. Ken had been flashing (other people, haha (I had to)) for a while before March 3rd. Brief glimpses of the atomic fusion that was occuring at the core of "us." I remember driving home from signing the paperwork for the loan a year ago today when the initial fight started. We were in his car, he was driving. The tension had been building over night because I was giving him the silent treatment for talking to that man-whore. He just SNAPPED in the car and... well, you snap at me and I'll snap back, bigger and louder. Again, it's the charm of being me.
The "flash," if you will, continued to us getting home, duking it out, and me going to work to cry in the back room with @markstyleme. I was 45 minutes late that day... and it was pretty awful. It was awful driving away from Ken, it was awful enduring work that day, and it was awful driving home. Upon arriving home, things had mostly settled. I think by that point the damage had been done by telling him I was breaking up with him (and then saying we'd work things out.) Later Ken would tell me that when I said that, "something died inside." Whatever; it had been dead.
The next morning was when I found out about more of his lies and I decided to stay with my parents for a few days. I was gone for a total of five, during which we talked on Google Chat frequently and discussed the terms of dissolving our lives together. Escaped from buying the house unscathed, luckily. By the time I went back, the flash had vanished. But it was replaced by the next stage of an explosion.
fireball [fahy-uhr-bawl]
noun
1. the highly luminous central portion of a nuclear explosion.
- can temporarily or permanently blind persons looking
directly into fireball.
I remember finding the information on Ken's phone the night I came home that proved he had already moved on with the cheap whore that I assumed he had. Nothing can describe how it felt to see that. I went downstairs (he was in the bathroom taking a shower) and I paced the living room. And then I screamed. I'm not a very loud person, most of you already know that. My voice hardly, if ever, gets raised out of anger. But it was a scream of such rage and anger and hatred and sadness and desperation and jealousy that I could feel it emptying from my feet and my hands. I could feel it in my teeth and my eyes, and most of all I could feel it in my heart. (Oof, writing this I still get worked up. I'm going to use my new Shakeweight for a moment, excuse me (little product placement. Make the check payable to "Sean 'Fierce-Bitch' Parker."))
Walking, nay, marching, up the stairs when he got out of the shower was probably one of the proudest moments of my life. It involved me telling him "I'm glad I broke up with your lying ass," and then taking the picture frame he had engraved for me on our 6 month anniversary and smashing it on the corner of the bathroom counter. I threw the frame down and said "take it with you when you go," picture still inside and destroyed. That would be my "Waiting to Exhale" moment, in hindsight. I'll be Angela Basset.
shock wave [shok-weyv]
noun
1. a region of abrupt change of pressure and density moving as
a wave front at or above the velocity of sound, caused by
an intense explosion or supersonic flow over a body.
Less than a week later he moved out, the full repercussions of it finally hitting me. I drove home from working in Green Bay that day to an empty house. I think he knew he was pushing his time limit before I got home, because the kitchen table and chairs were mostly heaved to the side of the kitchen, the floor was wet and muddy from moving his fishtank, and the heat, while turned off, was still at a palpable 72 degrees. The garage was empty of his things, save (honestly) for small bits of rubble, some of his paperwork, and some pens and small nick knacks. It was unequivocally the collateral damage that one would expect.
It was a hard night knowing that it was over. Knowing that even if I could fix it and get him to come back, it would never be the same. I talk big now but at the time, I was nothing short of heartbroken. You know you're in an abusive relationship when even having all signs point to doom, you still keep coming back for more. But that wanting eventually hits a crescendo and that's when you know the shockwave has passed the external boundaries and vanquished on the horizon.
firestorm [fahy-uhr-stawrm]
noun
1. an atmospheric phenomenon, caused by a large fire, in which
the rising column of air above the fire draws in strong
winds often accompanied by rain.
2. burns up all available oxygen.
The next couple weeks were pretty quiet and tame. Frequent visits from friends to keep me company, the feeling of being cold all the way down to my core, and the visual companion of shedding weight like a fat kid on diet pills in a sauna. But then there was the special day that I received an "anonymous" e-mail (truth be told, it was never anonymous. I know who sent it and we are pretty good friends now.) that outlined all of Ken's trysts. Until that point, which was about a month after the breakup, I had been very civil. I hadn't been vindictive or conniving in any way, save for the thoughts I had in my own mind and spoke to no one but my closest friends.
I think to say the time of my anger and retribution was reaching a fever pitch would be an understatement. I was ready to use my strongest weapon, my words, in a form I had never done. A post of facebook that would throw him and his deeds into the public eye, where his friends and his family would see it. It wasn't done solely for my own sake, but for the exes that came before me. The ones that didn't get to have their stories told, the ones that were forced to look like the sole bad person of each failed relationship with him. That wouldn't be me.
I tricked him into coming over that day, said I had mail for him (which I did,) and then I showed him all of the proof of his deeds that had been sent to me. He tried to run away and I chased after him, jumping on his car and leaning through the window to make sure he heard what I had to say. (Still playing the diva card, admittedly.) After he left he asked me to delete his friends and coworkers, especially his family, before posting the note. I declined and posted it anyway. It felt good, truth be told. I thought for a moment that I'd feel like a real shit for doing it but... nope! So with all visual effects of the explosion having taken place, there was only one way to go and that was onward.
fallout [fawl-out]
noun
1. the settling to the ground of airborne particles ejected
into the atmosphere from the earth by explosions or
eruptions.
2. an unexpected or incidental effect, outcome, result, or
product.
It took a few months. I had to move home and understand my role in all of this in order to see any sort of light at the end of the tunnel. There were a lot of bad days. A couple good ones sprinkled in, but a lot of bad ones. A lot of tears shed in my old bedroom at my parents house. A lot of tears shed at my friends houses, in the backroom at work, in the bathroom at work. Mostly on the drives home at night. Every tear falling though is one less in the reservoir. I feel we have a set amount we are going to cry over someone, or something, and eventually they do run out. I didn't want to be told by anyone that someday it'd be better and that time heals all wounds. You can only look back on things and say that. Living in it, in the moment, you don't want to think it.
Your grief is your own and it is something you need to come to terms with on your own. A relationship ending really is like a death, and you need to mourn it for as long as it takes. Forcing it to move along, even telling yourself you need to move along, isn't doing anyone any favors. And eventually that day came, in January. And yes, I blogged about it. The funny thing about it is that I look at that January blog post as the biggest purge; it felt good to get it out and it still feels good to have it out. That's when you turn to the recovery effort after the fallout.
growth [grohth]
noun
1. development from a simpler to a more complex stage.
Here is where I find myself now. Not bitter, not angry. Mildly complacent would be the best adjective I can muster. I wouldn't have thought I'd be here a year ago, but no one ever thinks they will end up where they eventually do. Well... some people do but they are probably assholes. To be honest I thought I'd still be reeling from this. Charlotte on Sex and the City once said it took half as long as you were in relationship to be able to get over said relationship. With that logic, I'd still be dealing with the grief until September. I think the fact that I'm not is telling of how long we had stopped being "us" before we actually stopped being... us. It'd been over for a long time and I can see that now.
So we do what we do and we pay for our sins (thank Tim McGraw,) but in the end we do move on. I moved on. I'm happy now, I feel good about myself now. I'm making great strides in changing my life and I'm loving every second of it. I don't know what else to say about growth. It happens when you are ready and it happens faster than you'd expect. Remember planting a seed in a little dixie cup of dirt when you were little? You watered it every other day or so and set it in the sunlight on your windowsill, waiting for it to sprout? Then one day you came home from school and it was half an inch tall? I think it's a lot like that.
You wait and you wait, you achieve the required steps and you do what is expected of you to resume a normal life, and then one day you realize you've been growing and changing the entire time. It just took a few extra hours at the tail end to see the progress. I didn't want to post a song by Kelly Clarkson to commemorate this occasion so I'll post one instead by my new favorite artist, Graffit6 (Jamie Scott, yum.) My favorite line in this song, which is about post-breakup, is "I'm gonna run like I'm 17 forever." Time to lace up those shoes! Have a great day everybody; I'm off to celebrate with my besties (c:
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