I should’ve known better. The other day I was thinking about this as the day passed that would have been mine & my first serious boyfriend’s 13 year anniversary. That’s right, had we stayed together our relationship would have been the equivalent of a potty-mouthed asshole teenager. For the better of both of us, that never happened.
As I was stuck in a shroud of reminiscence, I started to think about how irrational I was during the breakup.
We broke up on the seats of his Tahoe. I take that back. He broke up with me, I screamed a lot. I really didn’t believe it. This is the boy that stayed around my house every night after I broke up with him the first go around of our relationship. This was probably a bad plan on his part because I planned on just doing the same thing back to him. (Minus me parking my snowmobile behind his house & waiting for him inside on his kitchen counter. Yes, he did that). I became nothing but a body wearing pajamas & eating soup. I called into my job. I lost about 40 pounds. I would sit on the couch & cry every time I watched his vehicle go by on his way to work.
Had anyone known the things I was plotting in my head, I probably would’ve been sent away & evaluated by a man in spectacles who asked me how things made me feel in between craft time with other helpless souls. Because this is a place of divulging & because this is safely over a decade ago, I’m going to confess my crazy right here:

I tried buying him things:
This specific ex used to really love wrestling. I’m talking about the wrestling that they show on t.v. & make better with soap opera dialogue & the ripping off of their own onesies. It was not uncommon to find him sleeping on my family’s living room floor after he watched a couple hours Monday nights. And since he loved it so much, I figured that since some sort of wrestling shenanigans were coming to an arena near us, that would woo him back into my now bony arms. Luckily, his wonderful mother convinced me that this would indeed not work so I made some more broth & returned to my spot on the couch.

I tried stalking:
He wasn’t hard to find. His vehicle was loud & he was a local which meant he didn’t go very far. He was going out with friends more often & had started dating a girl from out of town who was also a shot-putter & so that’s when I developed a complex about not being athletic, but I still knew where I could go to drive by his vehicle slowly.

I tried poetry:
Not only did I take words I had written of us during our relationship, I took words that I practically wrote in my own tortured blood & made a cute little not at all creepy book out of them. And to just take it up one more notch & guarantee his begging me back, I added watercolor. That’s right. I took poems, made each one into a pretty picture & then dropped it off at his parents. I remember some looking like fireworks because I hadn’t yet perfected that medium.

I tried e-mails:
I kept it simple. I thought that since he wasn’t answering any of my phone calls, surely he’d respond to my written word. I just said, ‘I miss you.’ Guess what friends, he called! Success at last I thought. But oh, what a pity call it was. He called only because he got my mail & basically felt bad for me. Since he had ignored every other attempt I made he decided he’d cave to that. He asked me how my life was going & if I was onto solid foods yet. Luckily he didn’t know that when he called me I was simultaneously searching for his truck.

I tried buying more things:
When I wasn’t stalking I was driving around trying to potentially plan the next stage of my life. Lucky for me, Rob Thomas must have known this because his album came out with a song that I knew was going to be the ticket. There was a song titled ‘Unwell’ in which some of the lyrics were ‘I’m not crazy I’m just a little unwell, I know right now ya can’t tell so wait a while & maybe then you’ll see a different side of me.’ My brain exploded all over the seats of my Grand Am. I was sure that my ex called up Matchbox 20 & told them this story. Then I heard it & I thought that if I bought my ex the CD for his birthday, shoved it in a gift-bag with 3 different kinds of tissue & hand delivered it. Surely the fireworks were going to be better than my watercolor ones. Well he said thank you, but it didn’t throw him into a panic over losing me.

Then instead of me trying anything else my friends tried an intervention. After having cried in every public place she took me too, my best friend decided to introduce me to someone. His name was Bud Light. I had a revelation. Suddenly the world got a little less dismal & a little more covered in a happy layer of alcohol induced peace. Then I started to realize that boys were looking at me. Then I realized after enough Bud Lights I could make out with them & not want to go plummeting off the side of a road afterwards. A few months later I became smitten with a bright blue-eyed boy who changed my perspective on everything. I soon realized I could survive this breakup & my ex became just that. He was just my ex-boyfriend. I had heard later on that he told people how hard of a time I had with it & that he was extremely hard to get over. This was kind of true, I mean,I just gave you a psychotic looking little list of how hard I tried to deal. But then I realized he liked Nickelback & never grew a beard & I laughed & drank & made bad decisions & started a blog a bunch of years later. Since you read this all, I’ve decided to give you a treat. Richard Marx. The best part of this video is how slowly they take their clothes off. Who can keep eye contact that long?

So guys, let’s try not to be irrational if you get dumped. Just roll up the sleeves on your t-shirt, do things slowly like Richard & paint some watercolor. Don’t however, give those gifts to your ex.

Cheers friends,
-a damsel & her dog-