Morgan – Losing a relationship
“I was reading three or four books at a time, just so that every minute of every day that I was awake was filled with anything other than her.”
This is Morgan, describing losing a relationship.
I was really doubting this relationship. At the time I was just like, we really don’t have a lot in common, we have different opinions about everything. We didn’t argue with anything, we didn’t have conversations about anything really. We were both really busy, so we didn’t see each other very often and I was kind of shutting down, backing off, growing apart, if you will. Just kind of doing my own thing, hanging out with my friends, or when I’d come home after work, I’d jump on the computer, or start reading, anything other than, you know, interacting with her.
After six months, things changed for me, I thought things were going really well, you know, I was feeling more closer to her. And thoughts of getting married, which were pretty serious for me, because I don’t like the concept of marriage and I really didn’t I’d ever get, necessarily married, maybe common law after six years. But for her it was like a flip-flop, she was feeling worse about the relationship, she was growing away from me. I didn’t realize it though, but after that six months, for me I thought the relationship got better, for her she thought it got worse.
I got out of class and I had, my hands barely worked, you know, I was tired, mentally drained and I get out to my car and text her up “Hey, I’m done with my class, do you want to do anything?” She’s says “I need to talk to you.” So, I went home, and I’m kind of a calm individual, I kind of internalize things first. The first thing that comes to mind is more of a logical aspect of things, like “What do I do now?” What are my options? Then emotions hit me later and that is exactly what happened. I got home, I can’t even remember exactly what she said, to the gist of “I don’t love you anymore.” I was already thinking logically what I could do from this point; “Will this work?”, “Will that work?”, “Can I afford this?”, “Will I be able to still go to school when I’m on my own?”
After about 3 months, 4 months, I started seeing other people, I started hanging out, and even though I felt like I got past everything and I was very happy, that is when it really hit me that I’d lost something. It took awhile. It just all came in, and the only thing I could think about was her, and the relationship, and the breakup and how it all happened. The emotions started picking up and feeling that pressure in my chest, and that stuff, I was just constantly asking myself; “Why?” It just weighed on me, like so heavily, it was just ripping me apart. And I got a second job, I went back into school, as many classes as I could afford, just to keep my mind busy. I was reading three or four books at a time, just so that every minute of every day that I was awake was filled with anything other than her.
Looking back at it, it was just a big learning experience. I learned not to take everything just as “That is how it is.” You don’t think you’ll lose it, remind yourself that it is of value. I am glad that I’m kind of out of that phase, where I feel bad about it, where I’m constantly thinking about it.
The only thing that has really stuck with me is my hate for grey Civics, 2003 it is like a DX model. That was her car. For some reason, I really dislike those cars. It kind of carried over from the breakup. I’ll cut them off, or I’ll see them and be like “Those are horrible cars! Fuck you for driving one!” Sorry for anybody who drives one, they are actually great cars and get great gas mileage, but screw ’em anyways.
Losing Something by Jody Stephens is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.