The Life of Bon: October 2020

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Break up

I broke up with the boy.

He was here for six months.  With all the patience and desire and love that any girl could hope for.  He  thought I was a queen and a badass and treated me as such, with a mixture of awe and admiration.  He was anxious to please, prioritized my happiness and needs, never considering his own wants, desires, feelings.  He kissed me with the urgency and hunger of a boy who has never kissed before, or will never kiss again.  

But still.  It wasn't quite the right fit.  Little areas where I couldn't get our pieces to connect.  My core knew it long before my head and heart and body did.  The core leads the way if I am strong and brave enough to listen.

It's been six days since I told him goodbye.  It was a long and painful conversation.  He was convinced he could change himself enough to be exactly what I wanted.  I would never ask that of him, never want a partner to have to change who he is to be the person I want.  Nah.  Let him be him.  There will be another.

The day after the breakup I took my kids to stay in a nearby hotel for a few days.  I deleted the social media accounts, bought a book and spent the three days going to playgrounds, visiting Halloween attractions, and going on hikes up the canyon.  We swam in the hotel pool 456 times.  The kids enthusiastically learned how to work the magnetic key, excitedly ran through the halls, slept in the hotel bed next to me, kicking me all night long through their happy dreams.  Each night when they fell asleep buried in the crisp white hotel down comforters I read until my eyes finally felt heavy- the distraction of a book my lifelong loyal friend when times are rough.

On one night we ate Cafe Rio on the hotel beds.  The kids quickly finished their quesadillas and immediately got to work jumping jumping jumping from queen bed to queen bed.  (But seriously, have you ever slept in a room with TWO queen beds?  What a thrill, what a rush!). June landed on me, her gangly limbs flailing every which way and out of nowhere grabbed my hand and squeezed it three times.  I. Love. You.  Our secret sign.

It stopped me in my tracks.  Threw my heart right into my throat.

Where do our kids come from?  How did she know I needed that?  How could she see her mama's pain- a pain, suffering, heartbreak that I hadn't bothered to tell my children about?  It wasn't their burden to carry, I reasoned with myself.  

But still.  She was carrying part of it.  She had seen it and picked it up.

June gave me a smile and a hug and then lunged back onto the other queen bed.  Hotel bed jumping waits for no one, you know.

I looked down at my steak salad, took a bite, watched my tears fall into the lettuce.  I wasn't ready for another relationship to end, wasn't ready to say goodbye, wasn't ready to be alone again.

Watching my tears drop into the salad reminded me of my first ever heartbreak.  At 18 I had fallen madly in love.  He was a law student and funny and smart and witty and totally crazy about me.  We dated a year before he could wait no longer to marry.  (Oh, Mormons.)  I wasn't ready.  He said we couldn't just keep dating indefinitely. (I said why not?) So I let him go, convinced he would do his thing in the world and then return to me when I was ready.  A year later he was married.  He did not return to me.

That break up was devastating and crushed me in a way I had never before experienced.  It was my first relationship, and firsts aside, he may have been the best match for me of any man I've ever dated.  (Or married.)  My young spirit knew nothing of the world, but it knew how to find what it liked.  I couldn't reconcile getting married so young, though, and he couldn't reconcile waiting the five or ten years it would take me to grow up.  So he moved on.  

When we broke up I cried every day for months.  One afternoon I tried to shave my legs in the 700 square foot apartment I shared with five other 19 year old girls.  I sat in the bathtub with the shower going, the warm water running down my back and legs, shaving the same spot over and over and over.  Crying, sobbing, body heaving in the shower.  I remember thinking "stop crying, Bonnie!  Stop crying!  You have to stop crying so you can get out of the shower!"  But I couldn't stop.  The floodgates had opened and the heart insisted on mourning.  Shave cry shave cry shave cry.

And here I was.  Sixteen years later.  Same eyes, different tears, new heartbreak.  Eat cry eat cry eat cry. Grieving not just this break up, but grieving almost two decades of meeting, falling, hoping, loving, breaking, ending, rinse, repeat. Break up after break up after break up. (And of course, giving space for The Break Up which was such a big break up that it gets a whole new name because Divorces are break ups multiplied by break ups.)

At what point do I no longer cry over boys, no longer mourn failed relationships, finally finally find a person to do this life with?  A person, a partner, someone who gets it, who sees it, who also thinks that joke is funny.  My heart craves a deep connection, someone with whom to share it all.   Someone brave enough, silly enough, strong enough, emotional enough, sexy enough to tackle life with me.  Someone who wants the corners of my heart, the inside of my mouth, the deepest tunnels of my soul. 

Have you seen him?  Have you seen that man?  Because if you see him, send him my way.  

Tell him I'm ready.