The BetsyG-Spot

By BetsyG

Another toothbrush in the trash.

It’s taken a few times to get the rhythm of it, but the basic pattern was in place from the first post-marital breakup, with Gary. That time, I was at first too stunned to do anything; I just lumbered upstairs like a zombie and went to sleep. But by the morning’s light, I had a perhaps irrational perception that every nice thing he’d done for me was false. So I took his Valentine’s Day roses, folded the brittle bunch in two, and forced them into the kitchen trash. I shredded his birthday and Valentine’s Day cards and sprinkled them over the roses amidst the eggshells and crumpled paper towels.

He’d given me books, too, but I would never harm a book. The Leonard Cohen CD was another story. I kept it in my car’s CD player and made myself listen to it, to see if I could discover what he loved in it. There was no need for that anymore, so I took the vile CD, put it on the garage floor, recorded side down, and twisted it with the ball of my foot, grinding it into the cement until it was hopelessly scratched. Given Leonard Cohen’s voice, this might have been an improvement, but I still tossed it into the dumpster.

It may sound as if I was angry or bitter, but I really wasn’t feeling anything along those lines. I was following a natural—almost unconscious—urge to eradicate painful reminders that also suddenly seemed to be bogus expressions of affection. (Conveniently, the oil painting he gave me for my birthday still seemed very sincere.)

With Mike, since our relationship was brief and he dumped me on my birthday, the only thing I had from him was the absurdly tall Plexiglas vase that held an orchid branch on Valentine’s Day. It made quite a good sound when I dropped it into the garbage bin. Because technology had advanced since the Gary breakup, there were new jobs to perform: unfriend him on Facebook, delete his text messages and, finally, his number from my cell phone.

Since the Mike breakup preceded the Bob breakup by just a few months (imagine that—two beginnings and two endings in less than a year!) the routine hasn’t really changed. Bob hadn’t given me anything except some Glad Press ‘n Seal (which was a better gift than it sounds) and food, most recently a blueberry pie made by Satan. The pie was the only thing I had to throw out (you’d have to pry the Press ‘n Seal out of my lifeless fingers). Then I moved on to the electronic business: unfriending him on Facebook, deleting our text message exchanges, deleting him from my buddy list on AIM.

Check, check, check.

The one thing I don’t get rid of is the e-mail exchanges. They are the evidence of the former vitality of the relationship; reading them helps me better understand its demise, helps me see how I might arrive at a different ending next time.

So I read through the early exchanges with Bob, when we were just jawing, and the sweet ones that passed between us when the relationship turned romantic. When I see the quantity of these messages and the ease with which we communicated, it makes it all the more obvious that something in the relationship had broken down. And we never were in person what we were in those e-mails; I kept wishing that the e-mail rapport would materialize between the living, breathing versions of ourselves. Reading the e-mails is enlightening, but it’s also sad to see the promise that never manifested itself, then the slow turning of the faucet to Off.

The one departure from my usual pattern is that I will not obsess this time, ask why, try to undo. One reason is that Bob’s the only one who broke up with me because he just didn’t like me enough. What is there to undo or persuade? Shall I say, “But you should love me”? You can only feel what you feel.

The other reason is that, by instinct, I eradicate what seems to me false. I know he didn’t mean to be so, but no one was more false to me than Bob, who told me everything was all right and looked me in the eyes with love when he didn’t really want to be with me anymore. So he’s been expunged, completely, and that leaves nothing to obsess on.

With obsessing off my list, I have just one more task to complete.

I pick up my cell phone.

Delete Bob?

Delete.

I’ve agonized about this piece a lot and have chipped and chipped and chipped away at it to attempt to reform it into something that isn’t overwhelmingly negative. I felt I had to write it at this time, but getting the tone right has been exacting. To me, it’s sad, and in a profound way. That’s okay if you see it differently, but it’s not meant to be cruel. I liked this person a lot, and wish him the best.