New York, New York. A city that lives up to every cliche ever, and tolerates a hundred different things happening, always, in some corner of the city or another. A wedded couple walk down broadway in white dress and suit, or the sirens wail off to some catastrophe, big and small. So I woke up one morning and decided that maybe if I count my first heartbreak amongst the day’s table of events, it will be trivial enough and be washed away into a speck in New York’s current of indifference.
The intangible weight of love
When I was still in JC (basically still a kid now that I look back), I wrote an Op-Ed about why I don’t believe in marriage. It’s not some self-victimising lament about my single-parent upbringing. I think I fervently believed in love, just that I don’t believe marriage to be the ultimate consecration of love. More importantly, I was arguing for people to believe in the intangible weight of love and companionship rather than the arbitrary paper or wedding band. I now see the clear signs of a hopeless romantic. What did I know back then, saying those words and disagreeing with those who treat love as a means to marriage? Today, being (unfortunately) equipped with the experience of dealing with this dilemma, it’s safe to say that this laid the foundation for carving out one of my core life philosophy — to value any relationship as an end itself.
The first reaction many people have when they hear that I’ve set an expiry date to my relationship is that of incomprehension. Why not break up now? The sooner the better, the quicker the freedom, the easier it is to heal. I’ve always struggled to come up with a coherent answer. At it’s core is perhaps my underlying philosophy — that treating love as valuable in itself means that the journey matters more to me than the future outcome (or lack thereof). This wasn’t a failing relationship; it made everyday special, nurtured me, and made me happy. There was something cruelly practical about throwing out all of those intangible values just because I know this is not leading towards a future. To me, the end will always bring pain, so it doesn’t matter whether there’s more or less of it — heartbreak is something that hurts no matter what. Why should love prioritise damage-control (or pain aversion) over maximising happiness (pleasure seeking)? Being able to define the idea germinated from my Op-Ed essay and live according to this philosophy makes me grateful that I’ve grown so much from this relationship.
To overcome our cruel nature
Saying all that doesn’t mean that I’m unaware of the problems (ha, that’s an understatement). The first thing I have to learn to grapple with was the cruel carelessness we instinctively tend towards when treating things that are now disposable (to put it crudely). To be even more blunt: a relationship with an expiry is not a single-use undergarment, or the old t-shirt we wear to dye our hair, things we destroy and hardly spare a thought for knowing we will part with it soon. Knowing it will all end doesn’t mean it is time to let loose all the grievances, to let arguments fester, or to start with wandering eyes. Things still do matter, no matter how tempting it is to treat it as if it doesn’t.
The interesting flip side is that these are also pitfalls to avoid when treating things that are permanent. Relationships that last for years and years, marriages that feel like a lifetime, all these make it feel like it will never end and that it’s ok to let loose all the grievances and to let arguments fester and to test the love with wandering eyes. Carelessness is not a unique problem to relationships that will end; learning how to manage commitment and value our loved ones (in this case I’m even extending this to our family and friends) is crucial. Coming to this understanding has made me realise how incredibly lucky I have been to have a healthy partnership which taught me how to love in all sorts of ways.
Courage of the heart
The second thing I have to learn to cope with is the debilitating doubt and fear. Why invest more and make it hurt more? Every doubt and counter I’ve written so far had been a thought I’ve had myself. Questions people asked me were questions I’ve asked myself many times over. It’s not that it was easy to live by my choice. I simply held on because I think there is value in staring the end straight in the eye and to not flinch away. Courage might not be the right word, but without any distractions from people, alcohol, a rebound, whatever it is that singlehood grants you, it takes a lot of something to face the end eyes wide open and fully sober. Breaking up is not like waxing — doing it fast doesn’t necessarily help make it easier or hurt less. At the same time, it is not a rollercoaster slowly climbing towards the tipping point as I hold my breath and wait for the mounting dread to arrive. Being able to endure the indescribable quality of fear parallels those sci-fi stories of people who are now able to find out when they would die. Death and breaking up are not the same thing — no matter how dramatic I am being — but they are both a termination that inspires fear. In those stories, and in mine, I think the key reflection is that we truly learn to only care about things that are within our control, and to do our best to savour every step of the journey.
As the end draws closer it also demands courage to not make it a desperate count down. It’s natural to look at the calendar and see numbers ticking away. But to focus on the impending end, or to overcompensate by indulging in grand sweeping gestures, distracts from the journey itself. It is antithetical to my core philosophy. As difficult as it was, approaching the end with a steady hand and carrying on with life as per normal taught me how to not lose myself in a partnership. I still have friends that I will spend time with, things I must settle alone, and a life that will only be as enriching as I make it. Sacrificing those to spend every waking hour in the relationship, unhealthily prioritising love above all else; those are common mistakes in any context but especially so when things are coming to an end. I have learnt to be loving but independent, more so in these last few months, because now I see that throwing myself away for a relationship erases my ability to stay a distinct and maturing individual. Not only would I be putting all eggs into one basket and alienating myself from the support network that anchors and heals me after the end, on this long road of life I walk where the only constant companionship is myself, it is the worst to lose my own sense of self. I am grateful to have been in a relationship that had a lot of trust for this to work out, as we both confront the end with whatever courage we could muster up from our inexperience.
What does it mean to go into a relationship knowing that it will end?
Writing has always been my coping mechanism. In the daylight, I am confident to say that it had been a good relationship, and that I am at peace with letting it go. But when the night comes around, or when the urge to write this piece surfaces, I really don’t know. I can’t decide whether I am better off spending a week moping in my emotions, or whether spending my time busy with people and noise and the excitement of a new school year is better.
The only answer I have to this question I’ve posed: all it means is to test what sort of relationship I have established with myself. No matter how complete the goodbye was, I suppose there are many parts we must learn to endure alone. And so I look back on it all, learn to hold my breath and endure the dull ache, writing about one of many facets of life’s experiences until I am finally feeling alright to go to sleep.
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