It’s a little difficult to know how to be a writer and a person with a large public audience and also going through a serious breakup. When I had cancer, I blogged it all, and that was so helpful to me; I’m an external processor, and if I can talk something out, it helps me figure out what I think about it, make sense of it.
There’s a book Kevin recommended to me, Burnout, which focuses on how women go through the stress cycle. I’m not sure I needed to read a whole book on it — I ended up skimming it. But I think it basically makes sense. I had two takeaways from it:
1) Our bodies evolved to deal with stressors like lions attacking us, and so we get bursts of adrenaline, etc., which is very helpful for running away from lions, and unfortunately often counterproductive for sitting politely through a work meeting with a sexist and obnoxious guy speaking over you every five minutes. The stressor is bad, but the body’s stress response, meant to protect you, is also bad, and does a lot of long-term damage to your health and sanity.
2) So even if you can’t get rid of the stressor (when I had cancer, I just had to go through the two years of treatment, I couldn’t magically wish that away), if you can find ways to interrupt the stress response, you can at least mitigate the harm you’re taking. The book offers a lot of approaches for how you can interrupt the stress response, and I don’t want to try to summarize them all here, but they include things like talking an issue out with someone who loves you and listens to you. (Exercise can be another method, or learning how to breathe / meditate effectively, or having a good cry, etc.)
And for much of my life, while I do talk to some close friends for support, I mostly turn to you all. To the world. I’ve tried just journalling privately, but I have trouble keeping that up. The audience motivates me (external processor, as I said), especially the hope that something I say might be helpful to someone else going through a hard time.
But cancer was mostly about me. It affected people around me, but I felt pretty free to say whatever I wanted about how it was affecting me.
A breakup is, of necessity, not just about me. And I’m honestly not sure how to walk that line. Jed has said that I can say whatever I want about it — he said that about therapy too. Which I appreciate very much. (It’s hard to date writers. Really hard. Sometimes I’m surprised anyone is willing to.)
But despite his permission, I didn’t end up talking about the couples therapy for the two years we were going through it, because I was worried that public comment would impinge on the process, and would invade his privacy, and…I don’t know. It just didn’t feel right.
I’m in a similar place now. We’re taking some time apart, which is hard, but I think necessary and good for both of us. Breathing space. So I don’t think he’ll see these anytime soon. But we have a lot of mutual friends who will see anything I post about the breakup, and eventually, Jed may read these posts himself.
I don’t want to write anything that will hurt him, but I suspect even if I am very circumspect, I may hurt him anyway. Sometimes things that seem small to you, loom large to someone else. Sometimes they push buttons you didn’t even know were there.
One of the things that became clear in couples therapy is that we all carry around these narratives of the relationship. Stories we tell ourselves to make sense of what we’re doing. And often, our stories don’t match up with each other. Heck, often, our own stories change from day to day.
So here I am, trying to get through my work, because life doesn’t stop for heartbreak and bills need to be paid, being bombarded with pretty constant thoughts of ‘where did we go wrong?’ and ‘was there a point where we might have intervened earlier, or better?” and ‘is it really too late to fix things?’ Second and third and fourth thoughts, going over and over the story of what happened.
I don’t know, people. I think I just need to sit with this for a while, see how it goes. Maybe I will keep writing poetry about it, which is at least a little obscured. Maybe I will go axe-throwing with some local girlfriends and have several drinks and weep into my beer.
But let me just say how much I appreciate the outpouring of sympathetic responses to the break-up news. Close friends, casual internet friends, people I’ve met once or twice at a local event — when I look at that post, I still want to cry, but at least I’m crying wrapped in a warm blanket of affection. That helps break the stress cycle, and I thank you.
*****
Pic is of my bathroom this morning. I’ve been taking a lot of hot baths; they’re comforting. And this morning, the sunshine came out, after a string of grey Chicago days, and I walked in, and it was just beautiful. A good reminder. This too shall pass.