Every female writer armed with a little ambition and a lot of starry-eyed dreaminess, has a vision of what a “writer’s life” is. For some, it’s sipping black coffee in a café, while typing away on a laptop, the rain pounding the glass from outside. For others, it is a busy press room with the phones ringing off the hook.
For me, as a recent high school graduate, over eight years ago (gasp!), I had only one picture in my head of my ideal “writer’s life.” Carrie Bradshaw. Every girl I knew at that time coveted her wardrobe and I was no exception. More than that, though, I envied her brash honesty. The way she spoke- and wrote- about sex and dating so openly, so expertly and got paid for it.
As a somewhat wiser 26-year old, I realize now, that as an aspiring writer, Carrie’s wardrobe and her love of the written word don’t typically go in hand, but that is why Zara and Topshop exist. So even though I know that the Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle is a bit of a myth, I still figured it was time for me to come to New York and try my hand at my own somewhat modified version of it. After a four year run in La La Land, this (still) single girl has decided to see what the other coast has to offer- both in the job market and the dating one.
The Breakup Blog has gone New York.
Today it dawned on me that over the past several months, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the “getting over him” process, but very little about what comes after it. Maybe because I don’t feel like I’m there so I just haven’t added anything else to my agenda. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that maybe there really isn’t a “there.” And if I wait for this elusive “there,” then I’m likely to be finding myself looking for my denchers after sex and not just my panties.
Not to say that I’ve been holed up in my bedroom eating Lean Cuisines this whole time, sobbing into my bedsheets. That only lasted for the first couple months. I’ve been plenty busy and I’ve dated and broken up and had more than a few nights *ahem* sowing my oats around the greater Los Angeles area.
But opening yourself to someone new, being vulnerable again, after you’ve had your heart torn in half then ground into the pavement until it has morphed into a fine dust, well that takes guts. Because two years ago or not, I still remember the tears and the pain of laying in bed not wanting to move and I promised myself I’d never let myself feel that way again.
And then I remember the most vulnerable characteristic I possess— the fact that I’m a human being. And at the end of the day, we just wanna be loved. And love.
So what comes next? I guess after all the debris settles from the last love-induced leap, all that’s left to do is walk right up to the next cliff and toe the edge. To open your arms wide, hope for the best, and let yourself fall.
Over the past few months, I’ve had a few minor run-ins with members of the male persuasion which have made me think that, though my ex exacerbated these negative tendencies, I’m probably a little crazy, immature, and/or neurotic all on my own. I mean, I, of course, no longer stalk my ex or any new guys for that matter, but I’ve caught myself more than once stubbornly needing to get my way with a guy or working myself into a frenzy over a boy that didn’t call me back. Frankly, despite growing up immensely over the past couple years, certain habits may just be too hard to kill.
And as this realization popped into my head while driving with the windows down on a sunny afternoon a few days ago, I burst out laughing to myself illiciting a weird look from the guy in the car next to me. Because whoever decides to love me and (gasp) even deigns to marry me, is going to have his hands full. I am going to be the craziest, most difficult, most loving and beautiful partner ever. And he is not just going to have to be ok with that— he’s going to have to love that about me.
So I came up with this personals ad that I think pretty much sums it up:
Single, mixed race female. 25-years old, but vacillates between acting like a six-year old and a 75-year old. Will drive you up a wall with incessant chatter then turn around and need like a full weekend to myself.
Will throw temper tantrums when you ignore my texts for more than an hour, but will fold your laundry and even match up your socks.
Can’t cook, but will order your favorite takout and put it on a plate and make it look really pretty. Hates to clean, but loves to leave you little notes reminding you how cool I think you are. Will sit on the beach for hours while you surf or listen to you play the only song you know on your guitar and insist you sound good even when you keep screwing it up.
Driven, but prone to moments of extreme laziness. I will whine and mope and be extremely emotional then turn around and be the most rational person ever. I’ll give you great advice or just listen when you need to vent.
I will snore in your ear until you want to suffocate me with a pillow, but I will wake you up with the most insane morning sex. I’ll leave a mess of clothes, but only because I will be looking for the perfect outfit to wear to dinner with you and I’ll always clean it up eventually.
I will drive you up a wall, make you want to strangle me. But I will love you with every single tiny insignificant part of me. I will love you for all that you are, not just for who you could be. Most of all, I will be a better person because I love you and you me.
If you can handle all that, let’s party.
For all of you amazing readers who said that you would read whatever I write, hopefully you mean it! Despite being incredibly emotionally draining, scary, and HARD, I am finally sitting down to turn this blog into a full-length book, Love Made Me Crazy. (Still working on a tagline and am totally taking suggestions! ;) )
You can read the intro below and follow my progress at my brand-spanking new website:
www.kelliewagner.com
I am suspended in the air, ten feet above the ground at least. The lacy slip tucked beneath my dress is entangled with the grimy chain link fence that is keeping me, for the moment, from making face-to-face contact with the concrete below me.
How did I get here, you ask? Well, simply put, love made me do it.
The kind of love-sickness that leads to an otherwise normal 23-year old girl being stuck atop her ex-boyfriend’’s fence at 2:30 AM doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes years of cultivation, —a certain kind of hunger fed by years of denial of the one thing that we all come out of the womb longing for— love.
Therefore, this story doesn’t take place on the day that I first caught a glimpse of him heaving his suitcase out of the back of his black pickup truck, his chiseled frame apparent, even under the business casual attire that seemed unbearably oppressive in the summer heat.
This story begins 16 years before that when, at the tender age of seven, I lost the first love of my life.
——
I can’t recall if it was the persistent glow of the numbers reading 5:00 AM on the bedside table or the piercing sob of a mother’’s realization that she has failed to protect her daughter from the inevitable that broke through the fog of my sleep that morning. The senses blur together and form a sensational recollection that I cannot name, yet has stuck with me all these years. Without knowing why or how, I knew that my world was about to change.
Years later, my aunt would say that sometimes too much damage has been done for healing to ever take place, a statement that would ring true years later in my relationship as well. But before the love lost and the fucking and the fighting, it was the case with my mom, when after three weeks of a steady recovery from an aneurism, she succumbed to another series of strokes and was pronounced dead at 1:05 AM. She was 26.
xoxo thebreakupblogger
A friend patted me on the back yesterday and congratulated me for “growing up.” This comment was preceded by my confession that I’d never really broken up with anyone before. I hate direct confrontation so much so that I’d always just alternated between ignoring and driving my boyfriends crazy with obnoxious behavior until they were forced to dump me.
But I knew I couldn’t do that this time. As a big, grown-up 25-year-old, I had to be direct, suck it up, and do what had been done to me only a year earlier. Today was the day.
I spent much of my day at work expressing my terror to my co-workers about my impending breakup. I wondered if this was how my ex felt when he dumped me. I knew it wasn’t. I’m convinced that emotional, sudden breakups— though they hurt longer in the long run— are much easier to execute in the moment because they are sudden.
The ones you know are coming but you don’t want to actually make happen are extra nerve-wracking because you have time to think and re-think and plan and re-plan what you’re going to say over and over.
In the end, I said the truth, cliche as it may have been— it’s not you it’s me. We sat there awkwardly for a while and though he admitted he was kind of stoned and was not sure he was taking it all in yet, I could still see how bummed he was. And I still felt terrible.
So here I am, an hour later, feeling somewhat like a traitor writing about doing exactly what drives most people to seek refuge on this blog in the first place, but let it be known that no matter what side you’re on, no matter how wrong it all was anyways, breaking up just sucks. Period.
One of the things they tell you when you go through a horrible breakup and the snot and tears have finally dried (for the most part) yet you’re still in a rut is to go out and date someone new.
It’s the age-old advice. When you fall off your bike, you gotta dust off your scraped knees and get back on. Jump back into the saddle, if you will. Now I, a serial dater who literally has full conversations with my four-year-old schnauzer when I am forced to be without company, can totally get behind this type of advice- usually.
But I’ve quickly discovered over the course of my six month “rebound,” that sometimes what starts off as a distraction only ends up serving as a reminder of all the things you miss from your last relationship.
This guy, as clueless as he may be, never stood a chance with me. When he bought me thigh high socks for Christmas, I lamented to any friend that would listen that my ex bought me a piano our first Christmas together. When he was “nice” in bed, I inwardly lusted after the “naughty” sex life I’d enjoyed with my ex. And when I gently pushed him into being a little bit rougher in the sack, I’d lay in bed afterward visualizing the gentle way my ex had made love to me as our relationship became more and more intimate.
As time went by, I began to resent my new boyfriend more and more till I could hardly contain my glee as I walked around relishing all his faults and planning the day and exact manner in which I was going to dump him. But the weirdest thing was, as time went on and I grew more annoyed by his presence, he became more and more enamored with mine.
Then it happened. The thing I’d always jumped ahead to say long before it was true, he sent in a text message on the evening of my birthday. The “L” word. And that’s when I knew. I had to break up with him.
Because even after a breakup when it seems that the only plausible thing in the world is the pain that you’re feeling and everything and everyone else seems to be whirling around you in one big blur, it’s hard to remember that all those little people in that whilrlwind have their own hearts which are just waiting to be broken.
And one person’s rebound may be another person’s love. And so the chain continues…
Touche. And for the record, I agree. So let me explain…
When I started this blog over a year ago, I had no problem baring my soul and laying all the ugly feelings and the embarrassing actions that went along with them out on the table for the world (or whoever happened to stumble upon this humble little blog) to see.
At a time when my breakup with my ex had been acted and reenacted so many times that my friends had ceased to care or even take my painful tears seriously, I found a place to vent unabashedly. But today, on the eve of my 25th birthday, I scrolled back through my posts from the past year and idled on the entry I posted March 8th of last year. I was heartbroken that I wasn’t going to be spending my birthday with my ex. And you know what? A year later, I still feel a little tinge of pain at the thought of spending yet another birthday without him.
And that is why I avoid writing. Because even though everyone on here understood at 3 months and 6 months and even 9 months how I felt to lose my first real love, I’m embarrassed that at approximately a year and two months later, random pictures of him and his new girlfriend posted by mutual friends on Facebook can send me into a dark fog of gloom for hours and potentially fuck up my day. That when I lay next to my boyfriend of six months, sometimes I secretly wish it was my ex laying there. I think you’ll judge me, because I judge me.
Because I should be better by now. But the truth is, I’m not.
