Indigo Girls Holly Happy Days

I am loving the new Indigo Girls, "Holly Happy Days" so here is a little tribute to it!

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."

One month down...

Well...it is almost one month into single-dom. Everyone keeps asking if it is getting easier and parts of it definitely are getting easier. However, there are other pieces that are just setting in...mainly being lonely and not just having someone to talk to everyday. I think that is the hardest-this learning to be alone stuff. While I am ok with being alone most of the time...it is well...lonely. Yet, I am never really that alone, I have a roommate/s, and a slew of friends, just had a great birthday/party and have been getting to know a million new people. Unfortunately, just being around people doesn't always make me feel so un-lonely but the constant movement does seem to help relieve my mind and angst a bit. It has been 9-10 years that I haven't been single, so learning to trust myself, and mostly trust myself to be o.k. being alone, is the greatest challenge.

What is getting easier: my love affair with the city. While I miss the mountains terribly and my life there, I realize how many great things Denver has to offer. Great people, restaurants, music, vintage shopping, sexy workshops/crafts, even church that doesn't completely scare me. This city has beauty to offer a girl like me. So I'm learning to try to breathe through this new reinvention of myself, mainly because I have to. However, I am getting better at it by now. It seems that I am some sort of nomad who changes her life every three years: and it isn't like a new haircut reinvention, it's more of a life overhaul. So I am learning to love this about myself; I am adaptable wherever I go. Despite this I Still Miss Someone. And that's where this blog leaves off...thinking of how the past shapes my present and with the lyrics of the Joy Kill Sorrow song not available, I am simply posting the chorus and a link to hear the song. This is a band I heard at Rocky Mountain Folks Fest this year and the voice of the lead singer both haunts and uplifts me. I am pretty much obsessed with them right now.

I Still Miss Someone, Joy Kill Sorrow

Well, I'll never forget those blue eyes
That follow me wherever I go
And miss those arms that held me
And all other love
That was there*

*I think this is what she is saying; it sort of trails off towards the end.

Can you be friends with an ex?

It is amazing that as a single gal, I now appreciate Sex and the City in a very different way. This is not to say I glorify, or idealize it, more or less, it is still problematically white, upperclass, post-feminst, feminism, surrounded by the potential for some female empowerment. Potential mind you.

What I notice most now, is how the break up story lines play out. In some situations, people who are dating just stop calling and it's over-poof. Other relationships like Carrie/Big or Carrie/Aidan have a bit more in depth look into the break up. I don't necessarily look for advice or the word of God or anything-but there are some parallels especially between my break up and the second break-up of Carrie and Big. It's apropos really.

In the final ep of season 2, Carrie poses the question: Can you be friends with an ex? And since I am currently in that state of affairs (trying to say friends, while still feeling emotionally exhausted from the relationship) I have to wonder something similar. I feel like I want to be the cool chick who gets it (it's best for both of us blah blah blah) but, how can a friendship happen, when the pain hasn't even subsided? And how can you let something go that is so ever-present in your life? If one person is set on releasing, while the other wants accountability and acknowledgement for the hurt that has been caused, is it possible to continue along with any sort of relationship? At 3 weeks and a day post- break-up, is it too soon to move from Romantic Love-ville to Friend City U.S.A.?

No answers yet, but I am posting this videos which I love from both SatC and The Way We Were

The Daily Queer

Fun stuff!!!!


The Daily Queer

Tips for a successful breakup

Here's to being alone but not lonely

and

Treating friends like lovers and lovers like friends (I don't know who wrote this, but a friend articulated it to me the other night).

So, again, working through my break up I have decided to post some tips for a successful parting that keeps things more than civil and potentially amicable:

1.) The sooner the better. Don't drag the bandaid, rip it and have it remain ripped. This means sticking to what you say. While this is going to suck, it is the only way to breathe and get your message across, and eventually become friends (if you even want that). I would recommend at least starting to talk about the breakup prior to the actual parting-simply because if you love the person and have respect for them, it is wise to be fair and honest.

2.) In a similar vein, don't totally surprise the pants off of the person by breaking the news with no hints of feeling this way prior. See number one for reason why.

3.) Do it before there is a possibility of being someone else (that is more than a crush/make out). I say this because if you are unhappy and become tempted, the other person can be a good catalyst for a breakup, but in the end makes you look like a jerk to the other person and probably feel like a jerk to yourself because you know the "real" reasons why you broke up, but the other person has a nasty taste in their mouth from the cheat (or even potential cheat.)

4.) Do it in person, not via phone, e-mail, or text. If you can sleep with someone, you can break up with them face-to-face.

5.) Do not drop the "It's not you it's me" line because it doesn't work in the end. Instead, propose it as something that just isn't working out, that you are not ready for a committed relationship, or that it is circumstantial (meaning if circumstances were different, your relationship might also be different. Also, it always helps to reassure that person that they were really good to you (if they were), that you love (or have strong like) for them. The person will still feel inadequate, but being authentic and not dropping a cheesy one-liner is the respectful thing to do.

6.) In the end remember it is about you and not the other person. If you are unhappy and cannot get out of that slump, then you should definitely do this and save yourself the painful, explosion that will happen should you wait too long. I will say that this is an extremely hard realization, but in the end you have learned about yourself and what you want in your life.

7.) So it is not bad to do this to someone, it is bad to do this to someone you care about in the wrong way. It is important to be generous when doing this breaking up stuff so that you do not regret your words/actions/behaviors down the road.

8.) Even in the end, there are going to be hurt feelings and expect to get a letter like the link.

Keeping it on the up and up

So, yes, after two weeks to the day+1, I am writing about break ups. This is not to defame ANYONE, really it isn't. But I feel like I have had this conversation with people a lot over the past two weeks, and I want to write about it. In a Carrie Bradshaw-esque moment (and yes, I have been religiously watching season 2) I ask: when is it the friends' responsibility to tell you what the fuck your significant other may or may not be doing with someone else when you are not around? I preface this with a caveat, which is, not all relationships are monogamous(2 people in a loving committed hetero/homo normative relationship), I don't even pretend to think that this is a norm for everyone, but if you have established monogamous norms, for your relationship, and especially if mutual friends are involved, do they have a responsibility to divulge when a little "sunthin sunthin" is happening to your unsuspecting mind?

When having these conversations, I have received varied response: some people not wanting to get involved in the private relationships of others; others feel a sense of gratitude when someone told them; while others do not tell out of more loyalty to one person over the other; while yet another feels the need to tell out of necessity for authentic community building. These are just a few of the responses, and honestly, I cannot say I have ever officially been put in a situation, although I tend to make my speculations about these things known. But why do I do this?

Because to me, no matter how hard you try to keep your relationship private, relationships are always public. Your friends/family/strangers on the street help build and maintain healthy functioning relationships. So these folks know many of the interworkings (although not all, and many would deny their involvement), especially if and when you fight in front of them, but relationships are public for many reasons. To me this is because relationships build off of affective ties to one another, impulses of relationality that drive people together or apart. So this complicates things right? I mean if relationships are public, then when you begin to form new relationships with people, the energy-the chemistry-the affective impulse becomes recognizable, even if you are pretending it is not there. Now, this is something people who are closer to the relationship, like friends and family can pretend not to detect, but affect is PUBLIC, so it is there. To me this also means, that the relationship becomes open for some sort of public consumption/judgement and thus, it is free reign for people to talk about, especially to the other person who is in the relationship. So once these affective ties are noticed, is there any responsibility for these outside folks to intervene.

Traditional marriage values would say yes. At weddings they always ask the crowd/audience/churchy folks if they will support the relationship that is being sanctioned by the state and often the church. While, I am not for these rigid confines of religion, there is something to be said about making relationships public. There are also problematics with this, only some people are allowed to make the relations public while others are not, or because certain relationships are more valued than others. So I don't want to fall on this faulty logic outright but, it seems a smart way to go to have those around you who care about you, keeping your best interest at heart. And this shouldn't have to be achieved through a wedding or marriage either.

Of course, there are moral and ethical implications and no one really likes being the center of conflict or controversy. But I'm gonna go ahead and throw this out there. Even if there are mutual friends, PICK A SIDE! Of course this reinforces a binary of one or the other and isn't as transgressive as many of my queer political leanings would normally entail, but when a break-up happens, (and only temporarily perhaps) PICK A SIDE!

My advisor's signature line of her e-mail reads, "Refusal to take a moral stand is itself a powerful statement of one's moral position" (Dwight Conquergood). And in the sense of break-ups there should be no less commitment to taking a stand for one side or the other. I am not saying it needs to be that way forever, but the dumb thing is, people choose sides all the time and then say they are not choosing those sides. So just be honest: You knew the other person longer, you don't like the one who was a cheater pants, you are more loyal, whatever...but pick a side. It's ok, in this white civil world to sometimes take a stand and break those stupid norms. Plus, the person who was broken up with, probably needs some friends who hate the dumper-at least for a minute. Be that friend/family member and then let the dumpee decide when you can stop the hating and start the reloving. If you are the dumper, you should recognize that this is o.k. for the time being. Sometimes friendship isn't a free for all and you have to take one for the team. That's what a good friend would do...