Diaries of Food and Heartbreak 7/26
Yesterday was a bad eating day for me.
I was sadder than usual, a little angry. I felt betrayed by my ex, who I saw spending the night somewhere without me. I thought she had been crashing in Phoenix with her parents, yet here she was in my metaphorical back yard, spending the night with someone she met while we were together, someone she wanted to be her friend and not mine. I hope that doesnāt seem cold but those are the facts, and thinking about them I get raw and puffy faced.
It takes me about an hour into my day before I lose the will to eat. When I first wake up, if I can sleep, I feel happy, and maybe I have had a few good dreams. My mind is somewhere else, and head is on a clean pillow. I can enter the kitchen without thinking anything, eat nuts or eggs and feel ok. But if I let an hour pass, nausea starts to sink and I remember the questions that pester me throughout the day.
Without wanting to I have to ask myself: did I fail? And if I did fail, did I do so a little daily, so it all accrued over time? Or did I fail massively, somehow missing the moment I became an asshole? And I figure, if it wasnāt my fault, why the fuck did it happen like this? Why am I more heart broken than I can bear? Why did she do that? Why do I cry sometimes, and other times just let my heart pound in my chest? What do I do with the pain? What do I do with the thought I was hurt willfully by someone I loved, who loved me? Even when we broke up she looked into my eyes and made me tell her that I knew she loved me. What do I do with that? And that. And that.
Well, I have no answers yet. But when people put food on my plate, I can recognize an opportunity for progress. I eat half, sometimes more, before becoming tired by the effort. Throat lined with salt water wonāt find much soothing, and my stomach churns and churns.
When we first broke up I have to be honest and admit that I thought I was the only person in the world who had ever been heartbroken. I know that is another cliche, but I felt it true to me and proportional to the magnitude of the relationship we shared. Iāve cursed in a way I never have before and I feel no shame because motherfucking dammit my heart hurts so goddamn fucking bad and holy shit I might just why motherfucker??? why ??? fucking asshole goddamn. I canāt help myself, when it feels right, it feels right.
People have listened to me though and they are kind. Iāve finally learned that almost everyone seems to go through this awful thing of feeling heart broken and abandoned, and rather than cloaking myself in the illusion that this experience is singular to me, I believe them. I am stuck with an image from my childhood, a scene from the movie Crybaby. At one point, the heartbroken lead actress cries while collecting her tears in a jar, waiting for it to filled before she tips her jar back and drinks her own tears. I laughed at this scene when I was child, and now I cannot doubt its authenticity. I shouldnāt dare mock her heartbreak now.
There is one thing that has offered me clarity. Full of anger, I wanted to confront my ex. I would ask: why did you think this was ok? didnāt you know this would hurt me? why couldnāt you see I would find out? donāt you know I am in so much pain already? But I stopped myself. First, because my phone died. Then, because my friends Bre and Katie told me not to. And next, because I didnāt want to feel angry anymore. I didnāt want the anxiety of anger. I would rather take my jarful of tears and my heart broken heart and figure out a way to heal. A way to love myself. This is what I thought to myself in the hour just after I woke.
I realized that I cannot choose when and how I will be hurt. But I can choose how I hurt others. I can stop the pain I feel and let it end with me. In asking Dani to confront the questions that I cannot escape, I would be redirecting the pain onto me, making myself a victim, and I would be holding on to the hope that there was something she could say that would make me feel better. I donāt think there is. A part of me accepts that Dani is on her own journey with her own pain, and while feel injured I donāt need to saddle her with mine. I need to do the harder more important work of loving myself and trusting the person that I am.
So maybe Iāll eat a little more today. I think Iāll need the strength.