anatomy of a breakup. part 1. panic.

Panic is a mix of denial and desperation. You can't change what's occurred, but you really can't face that, not right now. All you want to do is run until your lungs give out, or get on a plane and fly home to the arms of your mother (who knows, in her heart of gold, that you're going to be just fine), or hear the words come out of your best friend's mouth, "Cry it out baby, 'cause you're going to be okay."

Your heart races and you seem completely unable to control what happens with your body. You may feel faint, and you'll sob hysterically. There will be these tiny, shining moments of lucidity, where you remember that everything's going to be alright, in between the crying, but they will be fleeting for now. Your head will ache and your eyes will swell. You may or may not feel like you are drowning, like you can't shake it off. It clings to you like high humidity, refusing to let the tears dry, refusing to let you breathe.

(Just so you don't think this is the complete bottoming-out of depression, because it's not, I'll leave you with a quote from my mother after we talked for hours tonight, 1am her time: "The next time you meet someone, would you just ask them straight up, 'Are you an alcoholic?' Could you just do that?")

There is just panic. Because you'll be alone. Because that was the person you were supposed to marry. That was the person with whom your future belonged. Which means, by proxy, in your desperate brain, that you no longer have a future. This, of course, is something you'll get past, but at the moment it's all-consuming. Who will mow the lawn? Who will smile at you when you come home from work? Who will take you out for dinner on your birthday? Who will surprise you with a back massage after a long week?

Right now, no one. You're alone. You're going to be alone for a while. You will need to learn to wake up without someone rolling over and putting their arm across your chest. You will need to learn to go to bed without hearing, "I love you." You will need to cry by yourself when you've had a bad day at the office. You will have no one to comfort, no one to uplift, no one to make love to. And so you feel the desperation of panic rise up in your lungs, squeeze your throat, and wreck your brain.

This is the first part of the breakup. It's one of the hardest, so do your best to get through it.

big decisions.

I am in a terrifying place right now, and I'm going to blog about it because when people are heartbroken, no one ever knows what to do and it's awkward. Well, it's human nature, and the best thing you can do is just something. I hate the phrase, "I don't know what to say." I get that often when I'm going through a hard time, maybe because I'm usually the one that does the saying when the roles are reversed. The fact is, you "not knowing" what to say makes it about you, when in fact, it's about the person going through the hardship.

What then, should you say? Your best bet is to say something comforting, or just to make physical contact and hold it there for a while. You don't have to "know" what to say; knowing is about the brain. Using your heart ensures that what you say won't be hurtful. Tell a story about your own life, your own hardship, and how you managed to pull through, and that no matter *what*, everything will eventually be okay. Maybe a lot of people don't want to hear, "Everything is going to be alright," but I know I do. It reminds me that - oh, yeah, - this isn't the end. Eventually pain fades and you are able to take the reins again.

My partner and I are facing a split. We've been together for four years and things just aren't working right for some reason. We can't pinpoint it, which makes it all the harder. If it was as easy, say, as infidelity, then things would at least move along. When you're in love but things aren't working, it's just flat out devastating. It consumes my thoughts; I'm not one of those lucky people who can put it away until later. I've been crying since I got up this morning, about an hour ago. And I cried for about an hour last night. My heart feels like it's full of lead: it's hard, really, to face anything. I don't think I could stay out in this small town if we parted ways, which means I would consider moving back home to the East Coast. This kind of ghost decision-making is absolutely exhausting. I really wish I could just pull the emotion out of me like a floppy disk and set it aside long enough to figure out the best thing to do next.

But now I'm going to tell you why this day of my birthday vacation has been really, really amazing. Even though I cried this morning and felt a great deal of heartbreak, I had a long conversation with my mother back home in Maryland. She was (is) not stoked on her daughter being "gay," (I'm not sure she's aware of the word "bisexual" or if it would make any difference to her), but because I'm her only child she was determined to do her best to support me. She's always been kind to my partner, which is all I can ask, and has listened to my pain with an open heart.

She reminded me that what I'm going through is normal, that heartbreak hurts, that it lasts a while and it's messy. She told me about her truest love that she'd been with for years, but they just couldn't work it out. They were better off friends than lovers, so while living in the same home, they moved into different rooms. Because they couldn't refuse being attracted to each other, my mother made the strong decision to move out. While she was telling me the story, she grumbled the last part: that, when she moved out, she ended up moving in with a friend of his who was into coke, cheating on his women, and being a poor father to his children. I believe her exact words were, "And then I had to move in with that fucking idiot." My mom's not a cusser in front of me. What's funny, however, is that the fucking idiot turned out to be my dad when he so manipulatively wooed my mother. Once he found out she was pregnant he told her to get an abortion and then abandoned her when she didn't.

To her grumbling, I replied, "Well mom, if not for that fucking idiot, you wouldn't have me." I could hear her light up on the other side without her saying anything. "Yes, I suppose that's true," she mused.

About the situation in my home, she looked at it from a very matter-of-fact perspective: either things don't work out and she'll fly out to move me back home to Baltimore for a while, or things work out and I stay here. Her factual, straight-cutting way of looking at the next few months made it that much easier to face today. She may not be the most diplomatic, sugar-sweet woman you'll ever meet, but goddammit, she's my mother and she always knows what to say to comfort me. Even if it includes a little dad-bashing.

Then, after taking some attivan to calm my brain down from being emotionally out of control, the dog and I took a drive out to the Cascades Lakes Highway, which is a stretch of highway winding through the central Cascade mountain range. On this highway there are dozens of alpine lakes, Todd Lake and Sparks Lake being my two favorites. Todd Lake was once called Lost Lake, and that's what I like to call it, because I HATE when natural things are named after people, especially if those names belonged to white explorers. At least if they're named after First Nations' people, they'd be local and make sense. Screw you, Todd.

Lost Lake is a 47-acre lake that is under snow most of the year due to its high altitude of 6100 feet, and is surrounded by moist meadows, which are then further surrounded by a coniferous ridge. At the far end of the lake, Mt. Bachelor rises above the treeline; it's really a purely magical place. This time of year, the lake is surrounded by shooting stars, paintbrush, and a couple others I can't identify.

I put the dog's backpack on to make him good and tired by the end of it all (which, fyi, worked because he's passed out right here next to me). Here's a recap of my awesome day.

Broken Top mountain from Lost Lake.

For some reason the dog LOVES to smear himself all over snow.

Mischief.

Shooting Star.

Paintbrush.

Baby Western Toads are finally out of the lake and making a break for it!

Wildflowers in bloom.

Mt. Bachelor behind the Lake.

Mt. Bachelor and the lake's outgoing stream.

In my immediate future? A get-together with my favorite craftsperson. Hopefully she'll be able to give me some tips on altering cheap clothes I bought but need a little tweaking to fit right. She's good at that stuff. Then, tomorrow, Portland is on the agenda. Although I wish my heart was in better spirits, my birthday vacation is certainly giving me a good mental break from work.