"Tis better to have loved and lost..." Yeah......? I think Tennyson was an idiot.


It's sort of a strange thing to announce a breakup over a blog... especially when you always told your now-ex boyfriend that the whole reason you never wrote about him was because you didn't want to have to explain his disappearance from the blog to an anonymous audience if you ever broke up. (Well that, plus he never read it anyway.) Ha. That's irony for you.

But there it is. I'm currently in post breakup. Have been for a week now - and it's sad... and depressing... and unreal. Especially since even though I technically ended it, I didn't particularly want it to end (Do we ever? Really? Truly?). It was more one of those things when you start out mildly unhappy about one thing and say, "Um, this has to change..." And they nod and smile, but don't take it too seriously. So a few weeks later you're back there again saying, "Okay, no, like really, you've got change this." Yet, for whatever reason, some men are just too-stubborn or oblivious or confident of the fact that they've got your love all sewn up to realize that "this" is a deal breaker for you... and they continue on with it, all the while professing their love... until you find yourself yelling at them with tears streaming down your face: "YOU'RE FORCING ME TO LEAVE YOU!"

Then, just like that, it's over. Quicker, and swifter, and much less drawn-out than you probably would have liked. Certainly than I would have liked. Because, as I said, it's not like I didn't adore him. Or consider him my best friend in London. Which he was.

And it hurts for that very reason. It's horrific to be here again, in this place where someone has disappeared from my life and the only person I really want to talk to about their disappearance is them. When quiet hours feel barren and I know there will be a long melancholic stretch without frequent calls or relaxed and comfortable kisses; an unsettling realization that I'll never hear anyone say "bA-by" to me in that same soft and endearing way again.

I know what they say. I've heard it all. That time heals. That there's someone else just around the bend. Blah, blah, blah. In reality, while time does numb, and yes, you meet other people... I sort of think everyone I've ever loved has carried off pieces of my heart that I've never gotten back. After hearing lots of disheartening stories about others' failed relationships through the years, I think it's true for most; to varying degrees we're all a bunch of unrequited lovelorns staggering around... even if some are a little more stalwart about it than others.

Call me jaded. I can take it. But better to have loved and lost? I have yet to be convinced. No, I think it is much better not to have loved than to have lost in the end. Even though I realize it's a perpetual Catch-22 if a person desires love at all. As Jean Anouilh wrote, (a quote I find I'm more in accord with than Tennyson's) "There is love of course. And then there's life, its enemy."

(The Olbinski above is Pelleas et Melisande, the same name as a tragic opera about three [it's a love triangle] unrequited lovers.)

5 comments:

ThisisNotaComment said...

A great love is perhaps incomplete
without its decline, agony,
without its conclusion.
Les Femmes et l'Amour, Sacha Guitry

I'm sorry for your heart :(

mirabelle darlene said...

Thanks for writing what my heart has been feeling over the past 2 weeks as well. Time does numb...but it's a bitch when it takes a break.

Ms.Nožisková said...

I hear the Guitry quote was one of Y'ves Saint Laurent's favourites... it's so horrible that love must go downhill for its termination not to be miserable.

Meggan - ugh, sorry to hear that we're in the same brokenhearted boat. Besides time, I recommend reuniting with happy old forgotten records and avoiding all cinema that touches on love.

Anonymous said...

Ms Spice,

Sorry for the belated note (I only visit the ferris wheel periodically) but share your sorrows from across the Pond. Sometimes loved and lost can transform from lost to loved. Hope you feel better soon.

Sundance Tom

Ms.Nožisková said...

Dear Tom,

Even period visits to the ferris wheel are welcome!

Thanks for well-wishes and kind words. Oh, I do hope you're right about your lost/loved paradox... time will tell...