Morning Mail - 6.22.11

Adam: [Calling Emma] You can't just suddenly call me and say you miss me!
Emma: I know...
Adam: No, do not call me to say you miss me. Do not text me, do not e-mail me... do not write it on my wall! If you really miss me, come here and tell me that!
(Source: No Strings Attached)

Do you ever think about the people who are coming out of long relationships and the effect it has on their lives? They say it takes about half of the time you were in a relationship to actually get over the relationship. I think about routine. For me, because we all define it differently, I would consider anything over six months to be a long relationship. The reason why I’ve defined it that way is because I think that after the third month of a relationship and your first big disagreement. A disagreement does not necessarily mean an argument, it could very well just be a line drawn in the sand. A disagreement does not even mean that both parties have actually came out and declared, “this was a disagreement.” But anyway, after about six months your relationships become “long.” The biggest flaw of a long relationship is the routine.

And that’s what I mean by the effect on someone’s life. You wake up one day and you are not in that relationship anymore. For some of us, we began our mornings with a phone call or a text to say good morning. For others, it was a kiss, a morning ritual of brushing our teeth, she ironed clothes and he put on a pot of coffee. He zipped her up and she straightened his tie. And then one day all that comes to an end and when you wake up you think to yourself, well what do I do. I thought about my recent dislocation of my finger, my left finger. One thing many people who don’t know me personally don’t know is that I have excellent hand and eye coordination. You know that scene in The Matrix where the cup of coffee falls off the table and he catches it. I’ve done that before in a meeting. In mid-conversation, a cup of coffee was knocked off the table and I caught it before it hit the ground. Much to the amazement of most people in the room, one of my closer work friends said, ”That’s because you used to play baseball.” And he was right.

When I dislocated my finger though, that quick reaction to use my left hand to do something was at first a painful experience. There were a few dropped items that cause me a great deal of pain because I had gotten so used to just catching things right away once they fell. I had to learn that I didn’t have the luxury of that hand anymore, or wouldn’t for a while. I had to train my reflex system to react differently. This is much like after a break up. Now you have to put on that cup of coffee and iron your own shirt by yourself. It’s rough, and daunting. And sometimes, we’d chose to be with someone in an unhealthy situation rather than having to completely start our lives over from scratch. The one thing I think people miss the most often is the companionship; the closeness of being with someone that you can talk to all the time. Enjoying their thoughts, and they enjoying yours. Nobody makes it too far in a relationship without communication. Do you know how hard it is to find someone that you can communicate with, and actually want to communicate with regularly? Almost impossible. Personally, after a breakup I kind of miss the “Fairy Godmother” the most. The fact that there’s someone who knows exactly how you like something and even if you’re not there, they can ensure that things are carried out exactly how you want them.

I don’t know, I woke up this morning and I thought about these things. I thought about some of my friends who have recently gone through breakups and how they’ve had to change their routine. They sometimes tell me about their mornings, and I’m amazed at how much detail they put into it, but I remember, “They’re just learning to take new steps.” I had a conversation with a old friend and she was telling me all of these things about the person she was becoming. It was so detailed; she wanted no drama and so she’s been reading a book on a drama-free life, and how she’s been hitting the gym and she’d like to get into training, so she’s going to go back to school for exercise science, and she joined this club, and she doesn’t go to these types of places, and prefers these types of places, and she just went on and on. I thought to myself, “Why is she telling me all of this?” Then it struck me, she had recently gotten out of a relationship at age 25 that she had been in since freshman year of college. My friend was having to rebuild the very essence of herself, something that had never been done before since she was tied down at such a young age. I thought about this as we talked, and then I did what any other man would do with a woman. Start at the beginning and ask for details. “What book is that? And who is the author? I may have read it.”

Until tomorrow.

Life is good. God is good.