"I sliced my hand on a mandolin and I don't have a boyfriend anymore"
My friends' everlasting wisdom on going through a breakup
One of my friends told me that when she went through her last breakup, she cut her hand on a mandolin for the first time ever when she was working as a bartender the day after it happened, and she texted her mom “I sliced my hand open on a mandolin and I don’t have a boyfriend anymore”.
That really sums it up, doesn’t it? It’s the moment that you’re not in a haze anymore and it becomes real and you really don’t have a boyfriend anymore. It’s the wakeup call, it’s the crying in the shower, it’s the pit in your stomach that you’ve been ignoring. In that moment it all comes crashing down and you’re suddenly, terribly alone.
One of these days they’ll change out the ad that he waited for me in front of in the Union Square station. I’ll be able to get off the L at Morgan and not feel my stomach drop. Maybe in a year, I’ll have a new haircut, and maybe we’ll pass each other by on the street without a second glance. And eventually, no single piece of either of us will be the same as what we once knew of each other. Does that thought scare him as much as it scares me?
Above all, break ups are strange. I once felt like we shared a brain in some moments, and now, when I desperately want to know what he’s thinking, there is nothing. No texts, no calls, absolute radio silence. There really is no such thing as being let down easy, because one day you’re telling them what you ate for lunch and how some client was being annoying, and then the next day they no longer have a profile picture on your phone and you’ve unshared your location. It doesn’t click immediately in your brain, so a week out you’re largely fine, and then the day comes that you’re randomly breaking down in the grocery store. I’m not sure which is worse: lashing out and screaming and crying like I did in college, or just going through my life in a haze like I am now.
How are you supposed to un-intertwine your routines? I leave the light on an extra minute every night until I realize that there’s no one next to me putting on face serum. I instinctively look for two seats on the train instead of one. When I buy a drink at the deli, I linger in front of the sparkling water for a moment too long. No amount of forcing will change these things. What was once a beautiful and comforting thought is now terrifying: we are all a tapestry of the people that we have loved. How do you get rid of a piece if it hurts too much?
Maybe you can’t. Maybe I’ll be 75 and married with kids, still leaving the light on for an extra minute every night. What I will have is friends who have been with me through it all. I am constantly astonished by the love and care that my friends show for me, not because I don’t feel the same, but because when it’s you, it’s different. One of my friends casually tossed out that she cried for me when we saw Japanese Breakfast last week and she played ‘Boyish’. No words felt appropriate for the gratitude and love I felt in that moment, so I just laughed. I can count on one hand the number of times that a boyfriend has bought me flowers, but the day after I got broken up with, my roommates left an absolute plethora of flowers and wine and snacks for me on the counter, and my best friends all came to visit me with flowers and gifts, staggered throughout the day so that I wouldn’t be alone. And when leaving the light on hits me a little too hard, they will still be just a phone call away, waiting to listen and call him a bozo head. If that’s not love, then I don’t know what is.