Note: A playlist of songs that illustrate the topics I have discussed in this piece may be found here.
Just like any other kind of grief, the period of mourning after the loss of a relationship is a journey with many facets and stages. The Kübler-Ross model of "five stages of grief" is so well known as to be almost a matter of cliche in any discussion of loss. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance - they may not go in exactly that order, and not everyone will go through every stage every time, but, in all their variety, these are the accoutrements of mourning. They come and go, shift back and forth amongst each other with gentle ease or crushing suddenness.
Of course you sink into denial when it ends. Of course you do. There's no way she really means it, right? You've come to this point before, or close enough anyway, and you always found your way back, didn't you? This is just going to make the two of you stronger in the end. You'll go to counseling together. You'll change. She'll change. But really, this is going to be good for you. It can't go on forever. There really can't be such a thing as "never again." Once you've suffered enough to really drive home how much she means to you and how wrong you were and how it all could have been different, she'll call and ask you to come back. The Powers that Be wouldn't really make you suffer longer than necessary, would they? They're only making you go through this so that this time, you really, really learn your lesson. Really, really, really. And then one day it hits you: she's really, really, really gone. And your future lies ahead of you, hours and hours and hours of it, years and decades of your life in which there is only one certainty: she's not there. Then you cry with a violence you'd almost forgotten you had in you, until your body shakes with every sob and your eyes are so red from weeping, they'll still be sore tomorrow. You finally fall asleep from sheer exhaustion. And when you wake up, you try not to, but you can't help but think: Maybe she'll call me today, maybe, maybe . . .
And sometimes she doesn't call, even though you have business to settle, for crying out loud, and you can't do this on your own, and the tension of not knowing what she's thinking and doing is unbearable. Then she calls, and you wish she hadn't. She's angry. You didn't do a damn thing right. You made promises you didn't keep. You're immature, you're lazy, you're just plain sick. You've been selfish, totally selfish all along, and she wouldn't trust you as far as she can throw you, and she can't bother trying to help you right now, she just has to look out for herself, and try to put her life back together after everything you've done to her. She won't hear a word you have to say, she hardly even pauses for breath. There's no reason you should have to listen to this, except that you do have to. When she's said everything she has to say, after one last biting imprecation, she hangs up. And suddenly you're angry too. You were trying to work this out amicably. She didn't have any legal right to put you out of the apartment, but for her sake, you went. You're letting her keep some of the furniture your family bought for you, without compensation, because she needs it more than you do. You've worn yourself into the ground trying to please her, sacrificed and made concessions right and left which she either doesn't acknowledge or doesn't think you have any right to feel so strongly about, unlike the brutally painful concessions she made for you. Maybe you're being unfair, but you don't care. She's being unfair too. So there. You don't need her. Good riddance. Well, you love her, but . . . so what. Good riddance. Or something.
Sooner or later, you get to the bargaining stage. If you have any sense, you'll bargain with God. Turn her heart toward me, God, and I'll do anything. Just say the word. You can make me die horribly in five years, or five minutes even, just let me spend the rest of my sorry little life with her. I'll move a mountain one grain of sand at a time, or swim from Alaska to Antarctica naked, or donate both my kidneys without anesthesia. Just please, please, God, let her love me again. But that's only if you're smart. If you're not, which of course you won't be, you'll attempt to bargain with her instead. I promise I'll eat lots of green vegetables and never touch a Caramello. I'll give away all my books, I'll stop writing in my journal what I did every minute of the day. I'll get a job, I'll go to school, I'll volunteer somewhere. I'll get therapy. I'll be an extrovert, I'll be a morning person, I'll be domestic. We can have big breakfast parties every day and I'll do all the cooking and wash the dishes too! Of course, that's not what you say, but it's what's in your heart, and the things you really do say are almost as pathetic. We could have made it work. I swear we could. If we'd had a bigger apartment, if we'd had separate bedrooms, if we hadn't rushed into getting the apartment, if we'd gone to couples counseling. If I were somebody else. We could have made it work. Right? Right?
Of course, she turns down your bargains, every time. Sometimes gently, regretfully, but other times with vicious honesty. This time, when you sink down to the couch and let the tears flow, no one knows. You are sad, and it's not a quiet and gentle sort of melancholy, but a gnawing agony in your vitals. In between disasters, you can never quite recall how awful it's possible for a human being to feel. Surely nothing was ever this terrible before? It was never this hard to breathe, was it? You were never so paralyzed and terrified by your pain that you shuddered at the thought of being in a dim room and you felt near panic at the thought of complete darkness; you were never so sick at heart you felt sick thinking of taking in a little water, let alone food. Nothing was ever this bad. Or was it? You may have thought it was at the time, but surely nothing could be worse than this? Because this really won't ever end. You thought last time that your pain wouldn't end, and it did, more or less, fading away to a sweet and wise little ache you barely notice unless the wind blows just so. But this time it won't ever end. Everyone says it will, but it won't. You know because you know because you know. You don't want it to end. You don't want to hurt like this, but you don't want to move on from it either. Not without her. Because moving on would make it too real. Moving on means you have a future without her. All you know is that you'll never love again. Not like this. Not if it means there's even the slightest chance you might have to hurt this way again. How could you have thought the risk was worth the pain? No, from now on your heart will be in your own safekeeping. Unless she decides she wants it back.
Then, one day . . . acceptance. Of course, the first time it isn't really acceptance at all, just a numb kind of denial. In a stupor, between crying jags, you let the hours carry you on . . . and suddenly it happens. Your life becomes interesting to you again. You laugh at a funny movie. The first time it happens, you bite your lip, hang your head, and feel disloyal. But then one day, you realize after you've been reading for a while that you were really enjoying the book, not just immersing yourself in a distraction. You go out with a friend you haven't seen in a while, and spend most of the evening talking about something else. You decide maybe you like yourself better the way you are than the way she wanted you to be. You start browsing the local community college's course catalog. You take an interest in something new - text adventures and Flash games, the Forer effect, chronobiology. You can conceive of living a good life without her in it.
Perhaps.
Someday.
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