original heartbreak (in a constant state of costanza: part 1)

In closing, these stories have not been embellished because they need no embellishment. They are simply, horrifyingly the story of my life as a short, stocky, slow-witted bald man.

- george costanza

There is this interesting moment near the end of 500 Days of Summer after Summer had finally finished shattering Tom's heart and along with it any remaining semblance of hope. Leading up to that moment, they had already broken up and randomly reconnected for a weekend. They bumped into each other on the train; they were going to the wedding of a former co-worker. And she initiated getting coffee and catching up. Then they sat together at the ceremony. Then they danced at the reception. Then she invited him to a party she was having the next weekend.

He knew better. He absolutely knew better. But he could not stop, himself...

He was still in love with her. And it is so hard to stare our dreams, expectations and hopes straight in the face and say no. It is frighteningly hard to admit that we are wrong once we have given so much, and the desire to scrape and claw and salvage a mistake, a defeat, gnaws at a person, until we either burn it - or it burns us. Sometimes we fight like hell to end something that has already run its course; we want a sense of justice, closure or a reconciliation when the only sensible thing is to run like hell in the opposite direction. So, predictably, he saw the weekends events and the party invite as confirmation that he was winning her back. And maybe he would have. if she hadn't been engaged.... to someone else...

At the party, after being largely ignored by her, and wondering why he was there, he saw her showing her ring finger to a friend. Complete with engagement ring. He bolted for the door and didn't look back, shedding tears on the street as he walked away.

Which brings us to the interesting moment near the end of the movie.

He had taken her to his favorite place in the city back when they had been together. Taking a girl to a favorite spot is one of the most exhilarating and satisfying moments in a young romance (it is in my eyes anyway.) So a month or so after the final heartbreak he went and sat on his bench. He gazed at the architecture, the buildings that inspired him. And he heard somewhere behind him, a familiar voice, calling his name. It was her. She came and sat down, and told him that she had begun coming there a lot, ever since he had showed it to her.

She looked in his eyes, and once more wielded her unmistakable power over him. The power she had claimed from the beginning. That he had given her for free. She told him that he hadn't been wrong about love, just "wrong about me." That she had just "woke up one morning and knew (about her husband) what she had never been sure about with him." He asked her why she had danced with him, when she was engaged to someone else. And then he in answering for her said something that resonated with me. "You just do what you want don't you." Many people seem to take what they want without regard for consequences, and even more chilling -without regard for the dignity of others. That's bullshit. She sucks. But in his depths - he always knew how it would end.

And that is the crux of it really. If one person (oftentimes foolishly) binds up much of their happiness in a relationship, in another person, after the other person initiates in the beginning and for a while seemingly behaves in kind but ultimately turns callous and indifferent - the betrayal they feel is all the more profound and the pain they feel, nearly unbearable. Who is to blame? Could it have been prevented? How can two people surrender so much of themselves to each other, and then later choose such disparate paths? How can one choose hopeful commitment, and the other, cruel and cowardly retreat?

Summer kissed him. She told him things, and then revealed that she had never before told them to anyone else. She invited him into her bed. Into her life. Into her heart. And then just as suddenly, threw him out. Used and discarded. But he knew going in that she was far from a safe bet. She told him she didn't believe in love, and didn't do relationships. But he believed she was the one, because, well, because he wanted to. And he jumped in without protecting himself. Without believing she was who she said she was.

The old saying tells us to believe a persons actions rather than their words. But when it comes to girls... Don't believe anything. Seriously. Not a damn thing... Just kidding. Sort of. In this case, he should have believed in her actions - her past actions. She told him who and what she had been in the past, and he should have taken her at her word only because her words and actions already lined up. It's when the actions and words differ that one should find a big effing, medieval shield and make for the forest. She, conversely, should have left her past sins - in the past. But instead they ran headlong into combustion.

Which brings me to the point of this post anyway. To tell an old story...

I disappeared in you
You disappeared from me
I gave you everything you ever wanted
It wasn't what you wanted

The men who love you, you hate the most
They pass right through you like a ghost

Oh love
You say in love there are no rules
Oh love
Sweetheart,
You're so cruel

She wears my love like a see-through dress
Her lips say one thing
Her movements something else
Oh love, like a screaming flower
Love, dying every hour

Oh love
To stay with you I'd be a fool
Sweetheart
You're so cruel

"You're a great guy, and you deserve a great girl. But I just want to be friends." "But I can change," I said. As I tried in vain to fight back the tears. "No. I don't feel that way anymore." Tabitha broke up with me on April the 12th in the year 2001 at 1:04 in the afternoon, moments before the bell would sound in the sophomore hallway outside of Mr. Ebel's classroom.

I cried. I cried as I looked into her eyes. And begged for another chance. For mercy. For forgiveness. Forgiveness for what I can't be sure - other than falling for her, I hadn't done anything wrong. I cried in the sophomore hallway, down the spiral staircase that led to the senior hallway, in the senior hallway, at my locker where two of her friends passing by asked me what was wrong. "She broke up with me..." I said in shock. I was spinning. I was crumbling inside. I hurt - deeply, and without reservation. My friend Trav tried to console me before heading to his class. I was a teacher aid that hour so I just went outside; I leaned against the roughly textured wall, slumped to the ground and sobbed. I had fallen in love with her. I had no expectation that it would end, no sense that she didn't love me in return.

You should know that one afternoon (when we were still together) I was bored and tooling around on my computer trying to pass the time, when it occurred to me that it would be fun to try and guess the password to her hotmail account. One guess (volleyball) and I was in. I forgot about it for a while, and I never bothered to tell her of my code-cracking rendezvous. About a week after she broke up with me, I suddenly remembered. So I busted into her email account because I felt that her explanation and reasoning for breaking up with me were insufficient. I knew she was lying. I wanted the real story.

Boy, did that piss her off...

And then about a week after that. There they were. Together. Tabitha and Stuart. "He's freaking ugly. What the hell?" She had asked me a few weeks before that final, fateful day if she could give her friend a ride to school every day because he was having seizures. "Sure," I said. And so it went.

I was new to Paola High School. It was my first and only year, and it was easily the best of the six years I spent in the public school system. I made friends pretty quickly through cross-country and my families involvement in wrestling. I dated one girl for about a month or so, but we didn't really like each other. And then my friend's girlfriend asked me what I thought about one of her friends. I didn't know her very well, but she was cute. So I was all about trying to hook something up. Tabitha was considering getting to know me too.

And she was also interested in two other guys. I was soon informed that she was gonna go on a date with one of the other dudes. I felt a little rebuffed, but I wasn't overly broken up about it. Okay, so I didn't want to give up that easily and asked my potential matchmaker if I still had any chance. If I hadn't felt overly rebuffed before asking, I certainly did afterwards. She told me on no uncertain terms that Tabitha would never go out with me, and that I needed to get over it. Funny, since it was her and Tabitha's idea in the first place...

Not more than two weeks later. She asked me if I had spoken to Tabitha that day. "um, no. i thought i was never supposed to do that..." "well, she wants you to talk to her. you should tell her you like her outfit and that she looks pretty." I did like her outfit and I did think she looked really freakin' good. (She had on these black boots and this skirt... And her hair. I loved her curly blond hair. It wasn't the last time I fell for curly hair.) And so I did what most young idiots who don't understand they are giving a girl all the power from the start do - I told her exactly what she wanted to hear. And on January 26, we went on our first date. We saw a movie ("Hannibal," slightly ominous don't ya think) with a group of friends. In her doorway while saying goodbye, she kissed me goodnight. I floated home in the back seat of my friend's car. I had dated a handful of girls before her. But looking back, that was the first time I found myself helpless and reeling straight into the hazards of love.

The next couple of months were happier than I had yet known. Her friends all agreed; I was the best boyfriend in the school. I bought my first Valentine's Day gift for a girlfriend. (And come to think of it, also, the last V-Day present for a GF). We had only been together for like 17 days, so I didn't want to go too overboard. I got her a single rose in a vase, with a teddy bear wrapped around it. It was tight. She made me some cookies. Stale and tasteless sawdust would have been more appetizing. But I was willing to overlook her baking skills. I was willing to overlook virtually anything she could have thrown at me. And I saw nothing but happily ever after on our horizon.

Our last weekend together was like any other. Perhaps better. On Saturday, I helped her and her family paint their house. On Sunday I went over for dinner like I had so many times before. And then we went to her room and watched a movie, "A League of Their Own." I haven't watched it since. I used to cringe every time I saw it scheduled on cable. We made out. A lot. I told her things like, "how did I get so lucky" and went home perfectly happy. On Monday I went to her locker to walk her to class at all the usual times. But for the first time, she wasn't there. Not a single time that day. I wasn't so dense as to not be concerned. So I called her after I got home from school. I called her home phone. We didn't have cell phones in my day. Weird. I suddenly feel like a stooped over 90 year old man talking about "uphill in the snow both ways..."

Anyhow, I asked if anything was wrong, and she said no, that she had just been busy. She seemed fine, even a little bubbly. So I put it out of my mind and looked forward to seeing her the next day. The next day we had a student assembly in the gym. I found her in the crowd and sat next to my girl. Only a funny thing happened. I felt a distinct, real, ice-like invisible wall separating us. I had never before felt the vibe of silent but viscerally real emotional divorce. But that didn't keep me from knowing it when I felt it. She was done. Just like that. Not my girl anymore. She wasn't at her locker a single time that day either. And yet, she still failed to deliver the blow. I was determined to have it out; whatever it was, I refused to remain in that putrid limbo. On Thursday, I got a hall pass and found her during her lunch period. I insisted that we talk that very day. And so she said she would come up to my psych class in Mr. Ebel's room a few minutes before the block ended...

Incidentally, that was the first night I ever got drunk. A borrowed bottle of rum - right down the hatch.