How it Happened
September 23, 2003

The breakup with Madison still hurts. If you’ve ever been in a car wreck, it still feels like that. It feels like that sick, sinking feeling of shocked realization -- every time I think of it. Put into words it would be, “Oh my God. How did this happen? Oh my God. Oh my God.” But I’m starting to remember that it wasn’t a healthy relationship; it couldn’t have lasted and shouldn’t have lasted.

It happened the weekend I came back from Orlando -- back from a month with the family taking care of and then mourning Dad.

To say that we hadn’t seen each other for the entire month wouldn’t be entirely true. I’d come back about a week prior. At the time, it seemed like Dad might hold on for a little while and I needed to get back to work. I needed to check on the house and my life; and so, came back to face other responsibilities.

The night I arrived, Madison had a wonderful surprise ready. She’d filled the bathroom with candles. The bath was made with fresh flowers -- four kinds of fresh flowers -- and honey milk. We cleaned each other, kissed, cuddled and after we got out, made love until we fell asleep.

Later that morning, about 5:30, the phone rang. I never would have heard it myself. But Madison, always the responsible one, was up and at the phone. She brought it back with a stricken look, “It’s your Mom.” Dad had passed away.

So, we had seen each other once during that month. And she had been wonderful, supportive and kind. But when I got back the 2nd time, about a week and a half later, something was different. It was our relationship in combat mode -- the dying relationship as it had been developing over the last several months.

The story goes like this. The Friday I was to come home was the 4th of July. I would have stayed in Orlando until Saturday, but Madison had a busy weekend and we wanted to see each other. That’s why we decided to meet at 9am Saturday. It would give us time to do some furniture shopping together and spend time before she had to run off to work.

Of course, there were 4th of July parties planned that weekend. My family was having one; Amy, a mutual friend was having one; and one of her friends, Brian, was having one. Madison had to work, but she was going to stop by Brian’s for a while afterwards. And since she was working that night, I was going to spend time with the family and then drive home, late, but in time to wake up early on Saturday.

Driving home, I considered stopping by Amy’s party. All my friends were going to be there. Also, her parties run all night, and she lives very close to my house. “But,” I thought to myself, “I need to wake up early.” It was more important to spend time with Madison. I really wanted that.

At 10am Saturday morning, I woke up. It hit me immediately that Madison probably wasn’t coming over. At 11:30 I got a phone call -- from Amy’s house. Madison was there and had stayed up all night partying. She went there instead of Brian’s party and was so sick, she said, that she couldn’t possibly come over and needed instead to go straight home.

Now, the thing of it is, if the roles would have been reversed, I would have called my girlfriend that night to tell her I was going to the big party which was just a few miles from her house. Did she feel like stopping by? I would have thought about her and at least called her. But Madison didn’t.

Mind you, this isn’t the end of the world. I was upset, but “what’s new?” I was looking forward to spending time with her after a hard week, but she drank a little too much, probably without intending to. So: Whatever.

Sunday, I was hoping we might get together, but she slept in and couldn’t be bothered to visit before work.

We finally got to see each other Monday night. She had a new sun burn. “Wow. It looks like you got some sun,” I remarked.

“Yeah, Amy and Bri’ and I ended up going to the beach on Saturday after we had some breakfast.”

That’s nice, I thought. I didn’t get invited to breakfast. And I didn’t get invited to the beach. It didn’t help that Amy is the person whose house she’d crashed at once before, all night, without calling, when we were supposed to later meet. We almost broke up that next day too. So by this time, I’m very confused and hurt. Even still, I don’t think we would have broken up that Monday evening. But everything kept getting worse…

One problem that we’d been having was chronic disagreements. And, I dare say, all initiated by her. If it had come up, I’m sure we would have disagreed about the color of the sky. If I’d said blue, on a clear day, she’d probably come back with something else, though I can’t fathom what. In fact, I’d been hoping for a clear and plain topic -- something that would give me final confidence that this was unusual. (Though my family and friends had been pointing this out quite a while.)

I got my clear and plain topic that night. She wanted to go for a walk around the neighborhood. It sounded like a good enough idea, though when we went out, it was horribly muggy. Making an off-hand comment, I mentioned as much. To my horror, she responded that it wasn’t really so, and in fact, was actually quite nice.

To each their own, but let’s call a spade a spade. I immediate started walking slower, stricken. I just wanted our happy relationship back. She snapped something like, “Are you going to keep up?”

“Can we just walk slower for a little while?”

“No. I’m going to be up the road. I’ll meet up with you later.”

And so, I stopped, turned around, and hobbled back to the house. This was it. This was the night. I couldn’t take any more and there was nothing left to hold out for.

Even still, even after this, I still don’t think I would have had the courage to say the words. But when she got back, she sat down at the laptop, and started some project. “What are you going to do tonight?” she asked. What I wanted to do, I thought, what I’ve wanted to do all weekend, is spend some time with my girlfriend. Maybe snuggle a bit. Talk.

Writing this, I’m left to wonder what happened. Everything was worse than it had been. Maybe I wasn’t appreciative enough for the bath? Maybe I didn’t call enough that last week? Maybe I’d said something? Maybe she’d had some private epiphany? I’ve never asked. But I did start drinking wine.

All in all, I think it took my about five glasses.

”Madison?”

“Yeah?” she responded without turning around.

“I don’t think we should see each other any more,” and immediately broke out into tears. She turned around with a serious look, and then stared into the distance for a while letting it sink in.

I don’t remember exactly what happened after that point. She eventually asked, “So how do you want to do this?”

I responded, “I’ll go to Orlando for a week and you’ll get your stuff out in the meantime.”

It wasn’t like any other breakup I’ve ever had. We spent the night together stricken and crying. I remember everything from that point in brief flashes. One flash is us in the bedroom, her leaning against the wall on the floor. She said, “I just can’t have a serious relationship right now and it’s killing me.” I hadn’t heard that before, so maybe this was all for the best after all.

Another time was as though we hadn’t broken up. There was a HUGE spider on the wall. A huge, fury spider. I screamed, Madison came out freaked out, and we set about engaging in mortal combat. Being so earth-crunchy, I didn’t have any insecticide in the house. But I did have some fruit and vegetable spray, which had some citric acid. It seems to work on ants. For the record, it does not work on huge, hairy spiders.

I sprayed it, it jumped, I screamed, Madison screamed and I think we might have hugged each other fiercely. I hate smashing bugs, but I ran into the bedroom for a shoe. I came back with my face all scrunched up and set about looking for it. Of course, it was nowhere to be found. Long story short, it was another experience, shared, before we finally got it.

There was a different moment when we were talking about our future together. She mentioned something along the lines of still hanging out, “unless you don’t even want to be friends anymore.” That caused her to break out into tears, mid-way through the sentence and we held each other while I assured I did want to remain so.

When we went to sleep, we slept together in the same bed -- though to say we slept would be a bit of an overstatement. The only time I eventually did fall asleep was after she moved her leg onto mine. I think she was sleeping when it happened and I didn’t move away. Somehow it was a comfortable, familiar feeling; and it was enough to let me finally sleep at six in the morning.

I’d gotten up a couple times before that happened. Once, I got out some old journal entries and read. While I was up at OSU in 1994, I’d written, “None of my soul-mates want to be with me.” It was how I was feeling that night as well. I’m plagued by people who like to call me a soul-mate, but would rather date someone else. Maybe I should look for the silver-lining in that, but frankly it just hurts. I’ve always thought I was a pretty good girlfriend. I’m not sure yet what I’m doing wrong.

The next day, was just as trying. I packed to head out for Orlando. Madison apparently wasn’t aware that I was leaving so soon. But, there isn’t any way I could have stayed. I hurt too badly. And when it was finally time to go, we held each other again and burst out into sobs. I’ve never sobbed with someone before. And I hope I never have to again.

So, that’s about it. Several months have gone by. I eventually went to Salt Lake City to stay with friends and forget my recent pain-o-thon. Madison is quasi-dating Shawn, a mutual friend of ours. I’m still in that emotional place where I will hate anyone she dates. And so now, I hate Shawn. And I hate Madison for dating in the first place. I know that’s wrong. But I have to be honest with myself; and besides, I think it’s normal, for now.

Last week we spent some time together when Bri’ came over to do laundry. When Bri’ was outside smoking, I confessed to Madison that I still missed her. She replied that she still loved me. And I said that I loved her too. There were quiet tears.

She had some interesting news as well. Apparently she decided to go and have an actually herpes test -- though her GYN had been positive when seeing her sore a couple years ago. The test came back negative. Interestingly, I had just come back from my GYN and asked for a herpes test too. Since I will be dating again, it seemed like a good idea to know. And just today, in fact, I found out the test was negative.

So that’s good and frustrating news. She and I had taken several precautions because of her supposed-herpes. And now it seems that was for naught and we needn’t have bothered. Of course, it’s good-good news for her, and I’m happy for that.

I also mentioned knowing that she was seeing Shawn. For whatever reason, that didn’t make her happy at all. She was relatively pissed-off and wanted to know who had told me. I wouldn’t say and so she remarked to Brianna, “Ashley has big mouth.” Of course, it was actually Ashley who’d told me, but I was not about to betray confidences. I corrected that it wasn’t her; though I’m not sure she believed it.

I’m getting now to the emotional point where I’m remembering only the good things in our relationship. I’m remembering now the bad, the things that culminated into enough pain to cause a breakup. I’m seeing now that she was probably pushing away. The timing was wrong, perhaps. And things that were bad in our relationship in the end were the same things that were bad in our relationship from the very beginning.

It occurs to me to list all those details, but what does it matter? It’s just that I’m tired of the timing, always wrong. I’m tired of seeing all the people who are dating, though many are settling, or fighting or generally unhappy. I’m sick of something that should be so very easy, sharing life and inspiring one another, being so very hard and complex. I’m still missing Madison in a bad way and am left with a new challenge: learning to live alone again. In the past it had always been so easy.

This is where I should write a concluding paragraph. But what I really want to do it talk about what it is like seeing her now. There is an intimate familiarly with her that I don’t have with anyone else. I know her secrets; she knows mine. We know what makes the other tick, what makes us happy, what pisses us off. We know each other’s intimate spaces. It’s like seeing a single light bulb in an otherwise dark room. And my life feels dim without it. It sends chills through my spine knowing that we’ll never been intimate like that again.

In a jealous-psycho way it angers me that other people will be with her. I want to shout, “You’ll never know her the way I did!” “You’ll never be as good for her!” But that of course is not true.

And it’s all for the best anyway. I wasn’t perfect for her, and she wasn’t perfect for me. I’ll meet someone much better, and so will she. But for now, it still aches…

A sunset in Salt Lake city.
7-31-2003