How Batman Helped Me Cope with my Breakup

Written in April 2013

Seven weeks ago, my girlfriend and I suddenly broke up after six long and happy years. Yes, I said six. If our relationship was a child, it would have been

• Starting to read
• Losing baby teeth
• Developing a sense of humor
• Learning how to catch a ball
• Beginning to dress itself

For those who knew us, our relationship was probably seen as a quintessential opposites attract. Yes, we were different, but our differences were more of a source of delight, understanding, and wonderment than conflict. As we grew to understand each other, respect and admire our differences, those differences became an opportunity to balance each other and round out our weaknesses.

Because of her

• I value relationships deeply
• I am extremely open-minded to trying new things and identifying with people different than me
• I understand the appeal of Downton Abbey
• I’m less introverted
• I respect beautiful design
• I no longer dress entirely homeless
• I see value in spontaneity
• I am conscious that my ambitions will be the downfall of my relationships if I am not careful.

The breakup was gut wrenching, devastating, and unexpected. Someone had ripped the fabric of my world out from under me, and I felt like I was falling endlessly. The day after, I wrote the following in Evernote:

“i feel like the world should not be moving forward

it is weird to see people just go about their day as if nothing has happened, yet there’s this monumental shift in my life”

The coming weeks were so emotional that I surprised myself. This American Life podcasts, a fucking sunset, gummy worms…anything would trigger the lump that started in my stomach and slowly crept up my esophogus. This lump of memories forced itself inside my everyday, and I vainly tried shoving them away as if I was trying to stuff an air mattress back into it’s original box.

The relationship ended because we were in different places in our lives. Despite us spending almost 25% of our entire existence together, and arguably together during the most formative years of our lives, somewhere along the way we were no longer walking quite in stride. Somewhere along the way she felt she was just following me down my path out of habit. I was moving too fast, too sure, and possibly pulling her in a direction she wasn’t ready to go. She never had that opportunity to look at the path that I was taking and to determine for herself whether this was what she wanted to be doing. She needed to find her own footing, find her own stride. She decided, and I ultimately agreed, that she needed to explore the world without having me as a safety net protecting her from falling. Like that old blind man in the pit said to Bruce Wayne “How can you move faster than possible, fight longer than possible, without the most powerful impulse of the spirit: the fear of death?” Without wise old blind men, Bruce Wayne would never have made it out of the pit, and I would never have understood why we had to go our separate ways. Thanks Christopher Nolan.

When you are together with someone for so long, they become your world. We had begun to build the foundation of our lives, and with half of it suddenly crumbling, my whole world fell apart. I was left to pick up the shattered shards of my life and figure out how to put together the puzzle pieces of some new existence. I had to find myself again. I had to rediscover who I was without her. The lines where I started and where she began became blurred. She was a band-aid that got pulled off too quickly; a good chunk of who I understood to be me came off with her.

Ultimately I know that someday our paths may converge again, but now I understand that she needed to go down her own path, and not just follow me down mine. I know she’ll find her way, and I’m proud that she’s made the jump without the safety net.

They say that at seven weeks old, a baby’s hands should be mostly open - ready to reach out to the world, but not quite able to grab onto objects yet. As I enter a new stage in my life, I know that someday, I’ll begin to move forward again. Until then, I’ll just open up my hands…and let go.