Words

"You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."

Six years ago last week, Dave posted that quote on my Facebook wall. Privately, so that only the two of us could see it.

The quote is by Joan Didion and I had told Dave that she is my favorite author. One night, looking for something romantic to say, he probably Googled Joan Didion quotes and found that one.  

We had just started dating and we went out a lot, to dinner, for drinks. I took the post to mean it the way Dave meant it, which is that the two of us had gone out together and that our lives had forever changed. For the better, he meant.

If Dave had read A Year of Magical Thinking, where the quote is from, he would have known that it is used by Didion to describe her husband's death. In painful detail, she writes about how the two sat down for dinner, what they were eating and drinking, what they were talking about. At one point, her husband stops speaking. She sees him, slumped over, silent, and, believing that he is choking, tries to move him so that she can do the Heimlich. He falls from his chair, hits his head on the table and lies motionless on the floor, blood pooling on the carpet. He is dead.

"You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."

Still, I was flattered and moved. I thought that Dave seemed deep because he was quoting literature to me. And caring because he remembered the name of my favorite author. And romantic. I didn't think much about context or meaning. I didn't wonder about a person who mistakenly uses a quote about death to describe the beginning of a relationship. It strikes me now, as I read the quote again, that it does not seem positive, even without context. It is about something sudden and abrupt that wipes out all of that which came before. If you are looking for that in a new relationship, you aren't looking for love. Love isn't something that you can use to erase your past. It's not an excuse or an explanation for the bad things you've done or will do. And it can't help you outrun yourself.

I remember the night that Dave broke up with me, five and a half years later. The details used to pain me but they don't anymore. I remember sitting down for dinner, which is when I realized what he was about to do. I remember what we were eating and drinking. He had steak and beer and I had nothing. We weren't talking about anything because we weren't speaking. Dave was concentrating on his meal, cutting his steak into pieces, and I was wondering how he could eat at a time like this.

The end was like the death scene Joan Didion describes, Dave slumped over on the couch, crying as he spoke his parting words. Me, motionless, next to him.

"You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."

And, sometimes, it's better that way.

Light

After Dave left me, my friend Chris invited me to come stay with him in Charleston, S.C. It would be good for me to get away, he said. And I agreed. I decided to go at the end of October, around Halloween, because that's my favorite holiday.

I met Chris years before at a party on the Lower East Side. He was still living in New York then. Dave introduced us and we bonded immediately because we both worked for the same chef but in different restaurants. After that, we often ran into each other because he and Dave knew a lot of the same people, DJs, party promoters, musicians. I worked part-time then and it gave me a lot of freedom to go out so I spent an inordinate amount of time at concerts, in bars and going to parties, surrounded by people who, it seemed, never had to wake up early for work. It's a lifestyle that, from time to time, I still miss. But seeing the same people at the same parties, drinking shitty gin mixed with soda night after night and waking up, vaguely hungover, at noon every day, becomes tiresome. And when the lights come on at the bar at 4 a.m. and you see your friends - maybe acquaintances is a better word - eyes wide, looking sweaty, worn and messy, you begin to long for the daytime.

I never quite fit into that world and so I sought out people I could relate to. There weren't many but Chris was one of them. We would find each other in the crowd and, sitting alone on a couch or perched on barstools, we would talk. When he became the chef at a wine bar in the East Village, he got me a job at the restaurant next door. Many nights, after I got off work, I would go to that wine bar and he would feed me bitter chocolate and sweet wine. I would watch him in the tiny open kitchen, always impressed by how quickly and deftly he cooked.

Once, Chris says, he came up to me at a party and told me that he thought I was the most beautiful girl in the room. I became awkward and, in his words, "ran away." I don't remember it. On another night, at yet another party, I propositioned his girlfriend. Thankfully, I don't remember that either.

I do remember the last time I saw Chris in New York before he left for his hometown, Charleston. We met downtown. He had his dog with him. We went to a bar where Chris knew the bartender and we drank together as his dog sat at our feet. Later, we walked slowly around the neighborhood and he told me about his breakup as he tried to keep his dog from lunging at passersby. We hugged goodbye in the middle of a sidewalk and I felt something more than sadness over the fact that Chris was leaving.

We stayed in touch, texting, talking on the phone. Chris got his life together, stopped partying, simplified his existence and got a good job. And I fell apart as my relationship slowly failed. When Dave finally left me, Chris knew, intuitively, that I needed to leave New York for a time, that getting fucked up and acting out was not the answer. After some animated discussions about all of the things we would do together in Charleston - in the sun, during the day - I excitedly booked a plane ticket. Then, I immediately became nervous and self-conscious. I called Chris, frazzled, and he reassured me that he wanted me to come.

In the weeks leading up to the trip, I allowed myself, sometimes, to think, cautiously, that, maybe, just maybe, something might happen. When my friends asked about my expectations, I would often say coyly, "Maybe," before saying more seriously, "No, I don't think he's interested." Still, I agonized over what I would wear, the things I would say, how I should act. I bought a half-assed, overly sexy Halloween costume that I never actually wore.

When my plane landed in Charleston, I beelined for an airport bathroom to redo my makeup, applying red lipstick and dark eyeliner. I wore a tight, lacy, black outfit. My hair was dyed turquoise. I put on oversized sunglasses to cover the dark circles under my eyes, which were more pronounced than usual because I hadn't slept the night before. I left the bathroom and saw Southern women in pastel dresses all around. Next to them, I looked like I was doing a walk of shame through an airport. I felt awkward, uncomfortable and conspicuous. I chalked it up to the fact that I was a New Yorker in a Southern city. My emotions were real but my reasoning was flawed.

I walked outside into the mid-morning sun. I looked across the airport parking lot at the palmetto trees and, beyond them, at the blue Southern sky. I stood on the sidewalk, waiting for Chris.

And I realized that I was tired of living in the dark.

Music

One of the most intimate moments in my nearly six-year relationship with Dave was also the first. We were sitting together in the office where we both worked and where we first met. We had the night shift and it was late, maybe around 2 a.m. The office was nearly empty, save for a few people down the hall. 

We had known each other for a month or so. And we had become close, though what was growing between us was still tempered by shyness, hesitation and unanswered questions. We were in that early stage of dating where everything and nothing is a mystery.

It was a slow night so Dave had gone out to a nearby liquor store and bought a bottle of gin. We mixed it with ginger ale from the vending machine in the office kitchen and drank surreptitiously under our desks. I remember I was tipsy, but not drunk.

There was a lull in our work and we turned to each other. And Dave, he did something that he would do countless times in the course of our relationship. He told me that he wanted to play me a song.

The song he played is called Violence. It's by Anathema. It's more than 10 minutes long and is entirely instrumental. Beyond that, it is nearly impossible for me to describe. But, I will try. It begins softly, quickly crescendos into something that can only be described as violent and then fades, gently, almost imperceptibly. Toward the end, there is a piano and Dave always said that those piano chords are his favorite in music.

Even more difficult to describe than the song is the effect that it had on me. And, I'm not going to try, because doing so would take pages and, even then, what I write would fall short. Let's just say that this was the moment that I fell in love with Dave.

That was the beginning of our relationship. And it's a fitting one. Dave is a musician and a lover of music, all kinds of music. And I adore music just as much. We had hundreds of records, piles of CDs, dozens of playlists on Spotify. There was always music playing in our apartment, while I cooked, when friends would come over, during quiet nights at home, as we got dressed to go out. Dave spent hours playing guitar in the living room, alone, for me, for our friends, and, later, as we sat, not speaking, wondering what to do. 

I used to write letters to Dave. At first, they were love letters. Later, they were still love letters but more complicated, imploring ones. One of the last letters I wrote to him was about music. In it, I described how the songs that reminded me of him had changed. For a long time, I wrote, all the love songs made me think of him. Later, songs about heartbreak, relationship struggles and sadness began to ring more true.

I ended the letter this way:

"For several weeks now, I've been asking myself the same question over and over again. It's this: "If we break up, what music will I listen to?"

The answer, Dave, is none. My life will go silent. And the silence will be unbearably and horrifically deafening.

Why? Because you are the soundtrack to my life.

You.

I love you."

One of the last things Dave said to me before he left was, "Don't stop listening to music."

I still can, and do. And it's easier than I thought. Yet, there are countless songs that I avoid, entire playlists on Spotify I cannot open, lyrics that come to me, unbidden, and break my heart. And Anathema, I cannot listen to that band.

But, I heard them recently because, of the hundreds of concerts and shows that Dave and I attended together, the last one was Anathema.

Clean

Sometimes, when Dave would go out of town, my parents would come to visit. They'd only come when he was gone because they disliked him from the moment they met him. I chalked it up to the fact that he was covered in tattoos and had long hair because, despite his appearance, he was kind, gentle and good to me. My parents, for their part, said that he was no good for me, that I didn't see him for who he is.

"They're so judgmental," I would complain to my friends, annoyed and disbelieving. 

On the rare weekends when my parents would come to my apartment to visit, I would clean furiously. I would vacuum, wipe down the countertops in the kitchen, clean the sink, toilet and bathtub, and dust the living room. 

But, inevitably, when they arrived, they would look around with disapproval on their faces. Sometimes, my mom would comment about how the litterbox smelled or how the kitchen was, in her words, "filthy." They would stare at the spatter on the wall next to the oven, at the dirt caked on the windowsills and at the pile of clothes strewn, unwashed, around my bedroom.

"They're so judgmental," I would think. 

I told myself that the apartment was old, that the stuff on the walls and windowsills wouldn't come off and that the laundry was no big deal. 

When I called my mom the morning after Dave broke up with me she said, relief in her voice, that she would come that weekend and that we would clean. Before she came, I cleaned even more furiously than usual, thinking that, this time, there'd be no way she'd see something that I was blind to.

Yet, when my mom arrived, she dropped her bags in the living room, wrinkled her nose and said, "We'll start with the kitchen. It's filthy." She said that when it was done, I would feel better. Exasperated, I told her that I had already cleaned before she got there.

We stood in the kitchen and looked around and my mom said, "First, the refrigerator."

I started to protest as she opened the refrigerator door, until I smelled a faint odor coming from inside. She opened one of the drawers and pointed to a brown stain from an unidentifiable liquid, to the container of moldy cheese in the back and to the mostly empty bottles of expired salad dressing lining the shelf.

She took all the food out of the refrigerator, threw most of it away and started scrubbing. I stood in the middle of my kitchen and looked around. Minutes passed and I didn't move. I expected my mom to bark at me to start cleaning. But she didn't. She let me stand there. She waited for me to see it.

My eyes came to rest on the once-white windowsills, now blackened with caked dirt. I always hated the way they looked but felt powerless to do anything about it. 

"Those need to be painted," I said, "because whenever I try to clean them, the dirt just turns to mud and makes them worse."

"You can paint them," my mom replied, "but the paint won't stick unless you clean them first."

So I put on a pair of gloves, sprayed the windowsills with the lemon-scented cleaner we had just bought and I started to scrub. And the dirt, it started to come off, layer after layer.

As the white windowsills started to peek through the years of grime and grease, I began to feel embarrassed and upset. My parents had seen this, my friends had seen it. Why hadn't I? How did I learn to exist this way?

When you live with a mess for long enough, you stop seeing it for what it is. And the mess gets worse. And, still, you live with it. 

It will come as no surprise to you that, as I scrubbed the windowsill, I began to think about my relationship. 

Up to now, I have told one side to the story about Dave. I have written about a man who was kind, gentle and good. That is the beginning of the story, the first four or so years. But it's not the end. And, here, I want to be cautious and I do not want to overshare because I still love and respect him. So I am not going to write, specifically, about the things he did.

I will say that near the end of our relationship, one of my friends sat me down over brunch and said, "I'm worried about you." My sister felt even more strongly than that. There were nights when my friends implored me to leave. 

I became a basketcase. And I stayed. I stayed because I was living for the relationship that we had, not for the mess that we were in. I stayed because I didn't see that the mess couldn't be fixed with tweaks here and there, a cursory cleaning. I stayed because when you live with a mess for long enough, you stop seeing it for what it is. And the mess gets worse. And, still, you live with it.

We cleaned for hours, rock music blaring in the background. I felt shame, guilt, embarrassment, sorrow and heartbreak as I thought about the mess, worked furiously to make it disappear. 

Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore. I stood up, threw down the sodden, dirty rag I was using to wipe it all away and began sobbing. My mom held me even though I was covered in sweat and dirt. Tears and mascara streamed down my face. I bolted from the room and took a long, cold shower, washing away the remnants of the mess that still stuck to me.

When I returned from the shower, the kitchen was done. I breathed a shaky sigh of relief, the kind that comes after a long, hard cry.

"Remember," my mom said, "it doesn't stay clean."

Trying

We had a plan, the two of us. He'd move out while I was at work and we'd cut contact. A clean break.

I saw him for what I willed myself to think of as the last time on the morning of the day he began moving out. I stood in the middle of the room, dressed for work. He sat on the couch, hunched over, tears in his eyes. I stared down at him, distant, removed. 

It was time to go but I couldn't leave, couldn't force myself to turn around and walk out the door. I shifted my weight back and forth thinking, inexplicably, that if I could just lift my feet, ever so slightly off the ground, it would make it easier for me to move. It didn't work.

I said the last thing I wanted him to hear me say, which was, "I love you." And then I left.

That's how I wanted him to remember me. Collected but kind. Calm, loving and caring. 

A clean break.

I began finding excuses to text him. Did he get the money I sent him? Did he mail the rent check before he left? Was another shipment of cat food coming soon? Our business-like interactions soon gave way. How are you doing? The cats miss you. 

My self-control started to weaken. I began texting him when I was upset. He'd take a long time to answer and when he did it would be short, terse. So I got mean. And then I would apologize. He'd say it was okay, he understood. And I would ask, "What do we do?" And he'd avoid answering directly.

Finally, today, I completely lost it. I sent a litany of vengeful, hateful texts. I apologized profusely. Then, I did it again. I pleaded with him to tell me what to do, hoping he'd definitively say to stop contacting him. I erased his number from my phone, reached out again, cried in public in the corner of a coffee shop. I met a friend, had two glasses of wine. Then, more texts, sorrowful, desperate ones. I cried hysterically on my bed, checked my phone and sent more texts. 

I keep searching for something profound to say, something that will bring me closure. But I have nothing and he doesn't either. At some point, it all becomes cliche, a tiring cycle, a downward spiral. We've already said all the things that two people who've fallen in love, been happy, been unhappy and broken up could say. 

Time

"Today wasn't so bad," I thought as I got off the subway at my stop and began walking home from work. I didn't cry at my desk, I had lunch with my coworkers and I laughed a few times without having to force or fake it.

I squinted into the early evening sun as I wound my way up the busiest street in my neighborhood. The street with all the storefronts, bars and restaurants. I passed a wine bar that opened a month or so ago. Outside, I saw a sign for "Wine Wednesday," at which time, according to the sign, all bottles of wine are half price. 

"That's a good deal," I said to myself, "I should go there sometime."

And then I remembered. I was there exactly a week ago, with Dave. We shared a half-price bottle of prosecco. We talked about our day, everything seemed normal. He wanted to order another bottle but I said we should go home instead so I could cook dinner. 

So we went home and I cooked dinner and he broke up with me. One week ago.

I mulled this over as I continued walking home. I thought about it carefully, from a distance, so as not to shatter my composure.

When I entered my apartment, I saw that the last of Dave's stuff was gone. In one week, he broke up with me, moved out and found a new place to live. I had asked him to leave his keys behind, partially out of spite. He left them on a clean, white napkin, which, for a moment, I thought was a note. 

"It's been one week," I marveled. And I couldn't - I can't - figure out if it seems like it's been longer or shorter than that, nor can I decide if the passage of these seven days means my heart will heal more quickly or more slowly than I initially thought.

I'm Doing The Best I Can

I'm doing the best I can.

I'm doing the best I can.

I'm doing the best I can.

This is my mantra.

I am doing the best I can when I redecorate the apartment, when I clean, when I force myself out of bed and go to work in the morning and do a good job while I'm there.

I'm doing the best I can when I stay active, see my friends, leave the house, run errands.

I'm doing the best I can when, instead of going to work, I stay home, drink wine, give myself a manicure and listen to breakup songs.

I'm doing the best I can when I get angry and send him mean texts. Or sad, desperate ones.

I'm doing the best I can when I can't get out of bed because I'm paralyzed by grief and heartbreak, when I cry so hard and for so long that I worry that I'll never be able to stop.

I'm doing the best I can because I'm trying, every minute, every hour, every day, I'm trying.