Below the Belt #5
Taking off, letting go
By Jennifer Sabella
Published: July 28th, 2006 | 11:06pm
In the past few weeks, I have been in a big fight - with my city. Chicago, the love of my life, simply has too much of my baggage within city limits these days, and I needed to get away badly. So here I am, cruising at an altitude of 41,000 across the Atlantic. The trip was planned long before my relationship with Chicago got rocky, but it couldn't have come at a better time.
As I drove around at the last minute picking up outlet converters and luggage tags, I felt a rush of excitement. In the next two weeks, I would see London, Madrid, and a good friend who lives in Brighton - but I felt sort of bad about leaving Chicago with such hard feelings.
When things are going badly in our love lives, professional lives, lives in general, escaping from it seems to be the best idea ever. If I could only avoid seeing and talking to the guy who broke my heart, all of it will be erased. If I put my student loan bills under my bed, they will disappear. And just maybe if I have an ocean between myself and the life I have waiting for me when I return, my outlook will be different when I get back.
While I'm sure a vacation will do me good, part of me is wondering what I really need to get the happier, more together "me" back. What do I need to make a full and healthy recovery?
"I read that when someone has their heart broken, it can turn into a form of mental illness," my friend told me recently. I can only hope she wasn't trying to drop a hint. "Obviously, you need to talk about it, obsess about it, get it out of your system, but there comes a point when it takes you over."
While there is no Eternal Sunshine-style memory erase method, everyone deals with break-ups in their own way.
Some get really, really drunk - which I'm pretty sure isn't the best way to go about things. Most of the people I know who drink to cope with a failed relationship are male.
"Fuck her," my drunk friend Mark slurred to me one night at a bar. "I did everything for that bitch, I hope she's happy with that douche bag she is with now, I hope she's really fuckin' happy."
Mark proceeded to drink shots of tequila and disappeared for a few hours. We found him in a nearby alley later that night, talking to a homeless man about how women are evil.
Another way of dealing with a broken heart is by having random sex, but this remedy can also backfire.
My friend Emily split with her boyfriend last week, and within three days she had sex with three different guys - one of them the night she and the beau parted ways. In her very distraught brain, she felt that this was her way of getting him back for breaking up with her.
"I bet he hasn't fucked one person yet, let alone three," she said. She also mentioned that she started sobbing mid-intercourse with two of the guys. Eeek.
As for me, I figured the best way to get over (another) failed relationship was to ignore it - the way I handle most of my problems. I distract myself with work, friends, writing, book, and television with hopes that I will be too tired to think about him before I fall asleep. And maybe it's working.
As my plane prepares for landing, I can only hope that a break from the Windy City will not only make me fall in love with it again when I return, but just maybe make me realize that there is a lot more to life than bills, ex-boyfriends, and bad jobs. And feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to make anything any better.
Issue #35
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