For as long as I can remember, letting go of relationships has been a monumentally difficult task for me. I was always one of those people who dealt with break-ups badly. I mean, badly. During such a period I am not what, one might say, the best person to know. There were the attendant crying jags that leave the eyes all puffy-to-practically-squeezed-shut, the fear and loathing of going to bed at night because of the wakefulness, and of course, the unnatural relationship developed with food. It’s even worse when I was the one pondering doing the breaking up. I remember once reading some tortured entries in an old journal regarding a desire to break up with the person with whom I was, years after the fact, still involved.
And it hasn’t gotten better with age either. It’s disconcerting to realise that even now, getting out those two simple, little words — “It’s over!” — still causes me to break out in cold sweat. There really is no handbook on how to do it well, is there? Well, I suppose there must be; a break-up one of those acts that have a hideous universality to them. But can anybody really write a How-To handbook on effecting and/or suffering through one? Because, like a fingerprint, each break-up is unique, and such an intensely personal affair, and no one can prescribe the best way for those involved to grieve. Especially when the relationship that’s ending is one that does not involve lovers.
Take for instance my recent break-up. With Patrick… my hairdresser.
He had been doing my hair for a long time. I remember quite vividly the first time I leaned back at the shampoo bowl and had him wash my hair. Later, I recounted for a male friend about the unbelievable orgasmic nature of that singularly non-sexual act. I was in my heady early twenties, of course I dared not tell my girlfriends about him. Patrick was my own delicious secret. Like a hot boyfriend I did not want to risk exposing him to those lushes who would love to get their grimy paws on him, and risk suffering through humiliating alienation of affection with him. I’d been there, done that, read the book, seen the movie, thank you very much. The reviews were bad. Very bad. Best to keep him all to myself.
Oh, I could live with the occasional outside woman I’d see straggling into his home salon when he’d struck out on his own. Every Jamaican man has to have a bit on the side: those tramps meant nothing to him. Me, now? Well. I was different. My status was assured. I was always offered the nice cup of tea, given total access to the remote control, placated with the scalp and occasional shoulder massage. I was special.
But then something changed. His friends became a distraction; because he was operating from his home they kept coming over. I began to feel neglected, taken for granted. The tea service dried up. I was now subjected to watching the crap he wanted to watch on TV. And the last time I saw him he was over an hour late for our appointment.
Eventually, I hooked up with someone else I’d met years before, and I was surprised to discover that Patrick was not the only person who could bring out the inner beauty queen in me. True, the new person was a woman. I’d never seen myself doing it with a woman again since those early, experimental days when I’d just started out doing my hair. But, at the end of my first session with Jordana, I stared at myself in the mirror, tears in my eyes. I looked fabulous! I’d stayed in that co-dependent relationship with Patrick for way too long, thinking I couldn’t do any better.
Wherever there’s a relationship of any kind, there is the possibility for a break-up. Relationships are hard. Damn hard. Regardless of their nature. Because we are human beings interacting with each other, even the most quotidian of dealings has the potential to be fraught with drama. The decision to leave — whether it’s a dentist, a bank, a cable company, for another — can become an existential crisis involving tortured nights of mental self-flagellation.
I remember when I changed supermarkets, toward the end of last year. How I was racked with guilt at the move. I’d developed a genial relationship with the management and staff and was perennially on the gift list of preferred customers at Christmas time. There was once almost a fist fight between two bag boys on account of me. But I decided to end it with that establishment in favour of another, newer, more upmarket one that came complete with DVD rental, mobile phone retailer and travel agency. On the same compound, there were also a dry cleaner, pharmacy and gaming suites. So many needs met in one fell swoop! I knew I was never going back to my old place.
Sometime after, I glimpsed my old supermarket manager at a function. I kept tiptoeing about, praying that our paths would not cross. Eventually, however, I chose the coward’s way: An Irish exit. The pressure was simply too great. The awkwardness involved with two people with a former past meeting like that was too much to consider. What was I supposed to say to him to explain why I’d broken it off with him? The old ‘oh-my-dear-it’s-not-you-it’s-me’ bit? Too insulting.
But this is the thing about break-ups. There’s no clean, pain-free way of telling someone, “Listen, I was crazy about you once. But now, the thrill is gone, I’m bored, and I’m so over you,” is there? Break-ups challenge our sense of loyalty.
Worse, they make big fat liars out of us all.
Not long ago after I left him, Patrick called me. “What’s going on?” he asked, petulant as a cat. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. So, I lied my assets off and told him I’d shaved my head completely bald. I don’t think he believed me, and I felt wretched for lying about brain surgery. Besides, I do worry that we’ll run into each other somewhere. And then I’m sure I would be forced to lightly stroke my head and vaguely say, reacting to his surprise at seeing a miraculous shroud of hair above my supposed bald pate, “Oh, this old thing? Darling, I’m wearing a wig!”