LJ Idol, Topic Seven: "Hollow Man"
"I don't love you any more."
Envy the person who has never had to hear those words. Because although love really does make the world go round, although I truly do believe it is one of the best things that can happen to a person, its loss can leave you crushed, broken, shattered....with nothing left to fill the emptiness.
I've been lucky in that most of the relationships I've had have been fairly amicable partings. There were a few that left tears and recriminations on the other side, and a few that left tears and anger on my side, and one where we were both crying, but for the most part they've been mutually agreed-on decisions to end things. In many cases we've managed to stay good friends even years later, one of them to the point where I had the interesting experience of watching an ex-girlfriend get married and being delighted for her. Even in the times where I was dumped, I usually came out of it on a fairly even keel. Sad, yes, but grateful for the times we'd had nonetheless.
But one of them left such a void inside me that it took me months to heal.
It was sort of a perfect storm of events, really. I had lost my job a few months before when the company went out of business, and my efforts to find something new had met with absolutely no results. I was becoming more morose and irritable as the fruitless searching continued, and it wasn't helping what had already become a strained relationship by then (for many other reasons which I won't go into here). I guess I should have seen it coming, but nothing quite prepares you for the moment when someone tells you, "We need to talk". I can think of no event in human history which began with those words and still ended well.
I won't dwell on the particulars, or go into the specific things she said to me that ripped me up one side and down the other. The words were couched in the gentlest of tones, not screamed in hatred -- but what it boiled down to was that she didn't love me any more, didn't love the person I was, didn't like the way I treated others, thought I was needlessly cruel and hateful, couldn't ever see herself spending the rest of her life with me. I probably should have been expected to fight for the relationship, to defend myself, to give my side of the story, but when she'd finished flaying me alive, I had no strength, no willpower, no interest, no hope. I felt hollowed, scoured, as if I'd been scooped out like a pumpkin and my innards carelessly tossed aside to be eaten by animals. I said goodbye to her and the door closing behind me with an undramatic click put an end to a three-year relationship.
For a day and a night I felt utterly dead inside. I ate nothing. I didn't sleep. I was the image of a junkie in withdrawal, curled into the fetal position on my bed, staring vacantly at the wall. Then the "denial" phase started. For weeks on end I wandered around my apartment, wandering around my head, endlessly circling, wondering what I had done, what had earned me such a vitriolic reaction. I asked myself if I really was that bad, if I was that much of a heartless bastard, if I really was cruel and hateful. I wondered, and I bathed in recrimination, and I marinated in self-doubt and guilt, and I stewed in self-pity, and I did all the other self-destructive things that people who've been dumped do. Oh, I never got toweringly drunk, I never broke things, I didn't get violent. No, all the violence was directed inward, where I was coming to believe all the things she'd said, seeing myself as a truly despicable and hateful person.
Although I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and managed to reach a point where I could function as a member of society within a few weeks, it took months and months before I really climbed out into the sunshine again. The endless support from friends and family, the reassurances that I really wasn't all that bad a chap, the countless reminders of good things I'd said and done over the years, all helped reconstruct me. Gradually, I realized I wasn't so bad after all. Gradually, I felt the cracks inside me being filled over, smoothed out. Gradually, I felt my heart filling with light and joy again as I started to take pleasure in my favorite pastimes again. And one day I raised my head and looked around and realized I was healed. At least, as healed as I would ever be. Some part of me will always be wondering what the hell happened for things to go that wrong.
I tried to learn from the experience. I tried to listen and mend the valid flaws in my personality that she'd mentioned. I really do have an acerbic personality and I do tend to be pretty sarcastic at times, and I can see how that would be offputting -- but it still bothers me that I had been up-front about these traits in myself from the very start in the relationship and they had never been an issue until the end. Still, I wanted to take something positive away from it, to keep me from feeling like the past couple of years had been wasted, so I continue with my self-examination to this day, frequently reevaluating what sort of person I am and trying to be a better human being.
But it's hard to take anything positive away from an experience that left you feeling like a human void for months on end.
[This has been my entry for Week Seven of LJ Idol. I hope you enjoyed my pain (heh). Please do go and check out the offerings from other participants; there's a lot of good stuff to be seen.]
Envy the person who has never had to hear those words. Because although love really does make the world go round, although I truly do believe it is one of the best things that can happen to a person, its loss can leave you crushed, broken, shattered....with nothing left to fill the emptiness.
I've been lucky in that most of the relationships I've had have been fairly amicable partings. There were a few that left tears and recriminations on the other side, and a few that left tears and anger on my side, and one where we were both crying, but for the most part they've been mutually agreed-on decisions to end things. In many cases we've managed to stay good friends even years later, one of them to the point where I had the interesting experience of watching an ex-girlfriend get married and being delighted for her. Even in the times where I was dumped, I usually came out of it on a fairly even keel. Sad, yes, but grateful for the times we'd had nonetheless.
But one of them left such a void inside me that it took me months to heal.
It was sort of a perfect storm of events, really. I had lost my job a few months before when the company went out of business, and my efforts to find something new had met with absolutely no results. I was becoming more morose and irritable as the fruitless searching continued, and it wasn't helping what had already become a strained relationship by then (for many other reasons which I won't go into here). I guess I should have seen it coming, but nothing quite prepares you for the moment when someone tells you, "We need to talk". I can think of no event in human history which began with those words and still ended well.
I won't dwell on the particulars, or go into the specific things she said to me that ripped me up one side and down the other. The words were couched in the gentlest of tones, not screamed in hatred -- but what it boiled down to was that she didn't love me any more, didn't love the person I was, didn't like the way I treated others, thought I was needlessly cruel and hateful, couldn't ever see herself spending the rest of her life with me. I probably should have been expected to fight for the relationship, to defend myself, to give my side of the story, but when she'd finished flaying me alive, I had no strength, no willpower, no interest, no hope. I felt hollowed, scoured, as if I'd been scooped out like a pumpkin and my innards carelessly tossed aside to be eaten by animals. I said goodbye to her and the door closing behind me with an undramatic click put an end to a three-year relationship.
For a day and a night I felt utterly dead inside. I ate nothing. I didn't sleep. I was the image of a junkie in withdrawal, curled into the fetal position on my bed, staring vacantly at the wall. Then the "denial" phase started. For weeks on end I wandered around my apartment, wandering around my head, endlessly circling, wondering what I had done, what had earned me such a vitriolic reaction. I asked myself if I really was that bad, if I was that much of a heartless bastard, if I really was cruel and hateful. I wondered, and I bathed in recrimination, and I marinated in self-doubt and guilt, and I stewed in self-pity, and I did all the other self-destructive things that people who've been dumped do. Oh, I never got toweringly drunk, I never broke things, I didn't get violent. No, all the violence was directed inward, where I was coming to believe all the things she'd said, seeing myself as a truly despicable and hateful person.
Although I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and managed to reach a point where I could function as a member of society within a few weeks, it took months and months before I really climbed out into the sunshine again. The endless support from friends and family, the reassurances that I really wasn't all that bad a chap, the countless reminders of good things I'd said and done over the years, all helped reconstruct me. Gradually, I realized I wasn't so bad after all. Gradually, I felt the cracks inside me being filled over, smoothed out. Gradually, I felt my heart filling with light and joy again as I started to take pleasure in my favorite pastimes again. And one day I raised my head and looked around and realized I was healed. At least, as healed as I would ever be. Some part of me will always be wondering what the hell happened for things to go that wrong.
I tried to learn from the experience. I tried to listen and mend the valid flaws in my personality that she'd mentioned. I really do have an acerbic personality and I do tend to be pretty sarcastic at times, and I can see how that would be offputting -- but it still bothers me that I had been up-front about these traits in myself from the very start in the relationship and they had never been an issue until the end. Still, I wanted to take something positive away from it, to keep me from feeling like the past couple of years had been wasted, so I continue with my self-examination to this day, frequently reevaluating what sort of person I am and trying to be a better human being.
But it's hard to take anything positive away from an experience that left you feeling like a human void for months on end.
[This has been my entry for Week Seven of LJ Idol. I hope you enjoyed my pain (heh). Please do go and check out the offerings from other participants; there's a lot of good stuff to be seen.]