The Post-breakup-Pick-Me-Up

Ah I think I am at five weeks today. Still plugging along. But I have been having lots of thoughts about a post from a couple weeks ago about being friends with an ex.

A while ago, three years-ish, I had an ex, who similar to me now was dumped for someone else (by me). I could sugar coat it in some Starbuck's white chocolate flavoring, but in the end, yes, it was for someone else. As my former ex did to me. Anyway this ex of mine said,(and it seemed cold-hearted at the time, but now I think it is brilliant!), "I cannot be friends with you until you have had your heart broken like this." Meaning, until your ass has been left somewhere in the cold for someone else you will NOT get it.

Now, I think she was/is right on! Because you cannot know what it feels like to be dumped and left until it has happened to you. Of course, it sucks! In fact, I think that without this other person, my breakup would be entirely different than what it is. I think I would be able to accept it in an entirely different way. How can I be expected to be friends with the person who left me for someone else and how effing crazy do you have to be to think that somewhere, five weeks later, that anyone (me specifically) could be friends with the person that I was left for? Yeah, maybe is Sunshine, Lollipops, and Daisy Land (which, is often confused for Estes Park, I admit), but I'm sorry not five weeks later, not even five and a half weeks. This is not a throw everything in the pot, add alcohol (and other intoxicants) and see how it turns out in the end. The sight will not be pretty, that I guarantee. It is not because I am not evolved or enlightened enough, it is because I got fucked over and I don't really want that rubbed in my face, especially on Christmas.

The fact is, when I see a Mini Cooper (especially red and in Estes Park, but that isn't even a necessity) I want to smash it. Metaphorically most of the time, but physically at other times. And I am not a violent person but this situation makes me want to, well, smash things. I can rationalize the break up in so many ways. We were going different directions, we have different values, we live in different places, but in the end, it comes down to the fact that she has a Post-breakup-Pick-Me-Up. This is something I do not have. And yes, it make me have irrational bursts of anger, plotting the destruction of this other human. In the end the couple of times I have seen her, I have ignored her, or simply done nothing, because really? What is the point? In the end neither one of them is worth that kind of anger. But yes, I am angry. Still. Five weeks later.

In the end I know it is good that I have no Post-breakup-Pick-Me-Up. I am going to be the person to grow, to be able to rely on myself, to figure out what I want in my relationships, not simply fill in a void that exists because of my previous relationship's demise. But, for right now, trying to breathe through this is somewhat excruciating, which, my therapist assures me is a good thing. Wallow in your misery, he tells me, or at least experience your feelings without putting judgement on them. Like, I feel lonely, versus, feeling lonely sucks.

So, can you be friends with an ex? "Not until they have had their heart broken like this."