On Being Dumped
It’s been a while. Thanks to those who checked in. I love this little site and for whatever reason I forgot that. Or maybe I know why. More below.
I am nothing if not a goal setter. While in past years my goals have been more pragmatic: eat less or read more, I challenged myself in 2023. In 2023, I declared, I would finally fall in love. I also resolved to partake in live theatre again, but that’s less relevant to my current state and the subsequent revitalization of this medium. You see, in the time that I neglected the written word, I was falling in love. For nine months, the limitlessness of my universe shrank to the curation of a microcosm inhibited by only the two of us. Early on, I made him watch the monologue from Frances Ha that encapsulates how I meant to love. I will defend Greta Gerwig as an actress to the grave because of how deeply she infused these words into me. It goes like this:
“I want this one moment. It’s - it’s what I want in a relationship… which might explain why I am single now. Ha, ha. It’s, uh - It’s kind of hard to - it’s that thing when you’re with someone… and you love them and they know it… and they love you and you know it… but it’s a party… and you’re both talking to other people… and you’re laughing and shining… and you look across the room… and catch each other’s eyes… but - but not because you’re possessive… or it’s precisely sexual… but because… that is your person in this life. And it’s funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it’s this secret world… that exists right there… in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It’s sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don’t have the ability to perceive them. That’s - That’s what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess. Love. — I sound stoned. I’m not stoned. — Thanks for dinner. Bye.”
Like Frances, I think I left my audience both overwhelmed and charmed. I graduated college, became a full-time employee, had a film I acted in premiere, and adopted a cat, but these were all just background noise to the constant underscoring of the pursuit of love. I dated before, but never as a fully formed human being, and never without walls. I fell like I never have before, the kind of love that makes you understand your parents as humans and leave parties early. My sweet boyfriend, I have to believe, loved me back just enough. Just enough, however, to simultaneously send me spiraling in the pursuit of a new type of perfection. I would become such an incredible girlfriend that he would never leave me, and all of his worldly goals and heavenly desires would magically dissipate and be absorbed by my human form. I was so busy being such a great girlfriend that I was completely blindsided by his severing of my lifeline. I went over to hang out on an unassuming Thursday, and within 20 minutes I was single and sobbing on the L train hurdling towards lonely Queens. The discomfort of being a Perfect Girlfriend is slowly being replaced by the discomforts of daily life. My morning anxieties are mine again and not his. I became such a good girlfriend that I forgot I live for waking up and pairing my weird horse purse with vintage saddle shoes and cosplaying as a soviet schoolgirl.
It is an odd paradox to have completed my goal(s- I also returned to live theatre) and yet feel so defeated in my victory. Yes, I fell in love, but his sweatshirts peeking out from where I shoved them behind the couch or his flirty Venmo payments make me wish I had not. A breakup is a remarkable thing. Being dumped, even more spectacular. And now hopefully my prose will improve, as I have returned to scribbling manifesto-like confessionals to a void on the internet and am comforted by the warm familiarity of unrequited love.
