Collateral Damage
There’s always collateral damage when a relationship comes to an end. No one comes out of it unscathed, because the immersive nature of forming an intimate bond with someone else consumes so much of your heart and soul.
And after the tears have dried and the wounds scabbed over, comes the awkward phase of being exes. After having been so close for so long, it feels weird to be cut off from the other’s life. But that’s the way it is, and maybe that’s the way it should be. When people are in a relationship they tend to act and think as a single entity, when they are clearly not. Then when it all ends, they founder in the water without having another person as an anchor.
No matter how mutual the breakup was said to be, there is an imbalance. People don’t stop loving each other simultaneously, although they may come to a stage where both acknowledge the love is gone. There is someone dumped, and there is someone doing the dumping. And despite what conventional wisdom says, both suffer.
The dumper usually tries to make amends - out of guilt, out of loneliness - only to be rebuffed by a still-hurting dumpee. Fair enough. In fact I’d consider it good times if no one got maimed or murdered as a result of ending a relationship. The relationship is dead. Grieve, and move on. Being reminded of dead relatives sucks, right? So why would you want to be reminded of a dead relationship?
The best-case scenario would be not having to see the other party again. It’s so damn awkward when you’re subjected to their presence every day. It nags at you, a constant reminder of your failure in the realm of human intimacy. Times like this, you really wish for a total memory wipe, just so you could be free of the tense silences and the regrets that come to mind.
It took me one year to get over my ex-boyfriend. During that interval, there were places I didn’t want to visit because they were tied to memories of us, movies I couldn’t watch without thinking of him, all these signs of a heart still unhealed. It sucked to see him with someone new so soon after we broke up. It sucked because he had moved on and I hadn’t. So yes, it took me one year before I was willing to speak to him again. And it took me 3 years after we broke up for me to finally, totally, get over him. 3 years to achieve the closure I had been craving. But oh, the feeling of finally being set free was wonderful. And now I can totally consign him to the history bin with a perfunctory “Whatever”.
They say you never forget your first love. I would rationally think that’s because your first love is also, in most cases, your first heartbreak. It’s the one that rips all the illusions from your eyes. It teaches you that relationships are hard work, that they don’t last forever, and that talking about getting married doesn’t make it so (hear that, you annoying 15-year-olds calling each other ‘hubby’ and ‘lao po’?). When your first love becomes your first breakup, reality invades and teaches you a good hard lesson.
Actually I think that being in secondary school and changing boyfriends every year doesn’t result in any disillusionment simply because they’re too stupid or immature to introspect and reflect on what went wrong in the relationship. But again, teenage puppy love isn’t fraught with the kinds of problems adult relationships face. Call me condescending but I don’t see how my teenage crushes, and my friends’ schoolday romances, bear any resemblance to their current adult relationships. But then again, some adults are also too stupid and immature to learn anything from their relationships. When I say ‘adult relationship’, I mean one where both parties are mature and aware of the implications, as opposed to the teenage ones where it’s just a part of adolescent exploration.
So yes, you never forget your first love because it was full of sweetness and innocence and you truly believed in the power of love to change the world. Until it ended and the world rolled on, oblivious to your intentions for its improvement. In subsequent relationships you’re a little bit more cynical, and wiser, and your heart is a little bit harder. But hey, at least you still have a heart to give away. Trust me, it’s there. No matter if you think your ex stole it away to smash it into smithereens, your heart is your own to reclaim any damn time.
Comments are not allowed at this time.