the break up.

One beautiful west coast spring evening, I sat stunned on my bed. Stunned, with a  glass of chewy red in hand. I was for the record, a living, breathing trifecta. I was stunned, buzzed, and struggling to say out loud five words.

I tried uttering the sentence with different intonations, like Lady J has advised, that one time at band camp (kidding) no that one time when my mum had given us ladies of the family, tiara’s for Christmas, and we were all introducing each other with our regal names ‘Duchess of Silveridge’ etc. and working on our royal entrances up and down my staircase, hand wave and all, I think we also took formal portraits, sans Corgies. We had consumed copious amounts of wine ok? No judgement.

Five words. No matter where I placed the emphasis in the sentence,  I couldn’t get it to resonate. The concept was live, it was happening. But it was taking all my might to grasp it.

And dare you ask why? Oh go on, be brazen. You know what I’m like, a word vomitter.

The answer?  Well it really came down to a situation I had let happen, a happenstance.

It in the most dramatic fashion was leaving one great love for the one. Breaking up with the great love, and in my case, well it was actually going to be quite amicable, the love being left, was almost in a sense ushering me out. The love knew it was time, our love affair was over, I needed to move on to bigger things, and the love in question? Well they would stay put, that was their fate, they were not moveable. Potentially, one day, in the future, I would come back to them, but it was too soon to say, as they motioned, you are going to take over the world, we will see you.

And the break up? Everyone always wants to know when and where. Well for us, this great love and I, when we broke up, we were in the throws of our standard ‘nooner’. It was sunny, a gorgeous day, and then we were interrupted by a phone call.  Beau.  His and I’s plans for our west coast cocoon had been unexpectedly kiboshed, so in a moment of an epiphany, on my noon hour date with Stanley, (of the Park variety) running in the sun around the whatever its called gun, I stared up at the Coastals, gazed in awe at the Lions, and in one moment uttered 5 words to Beau over the phone.

Up until this point, these 5 words,   Vancouver was to me, my love affair, the great love I needed to move out of and on from a personal relationship that just couldn’t sustain. And after the fact, and into present here I was with an opportunity of a lifetime, thus far of course, let us never count on something being the be all end all, right? So if Beau is the one, what was Vancouver? If every relationship  has a purpose, what was Vancouver to me?

Well, Vancouver, my great love, proved to be my core shaker, shoulder to cry on, home base,  foundation, trust, entertainment, love,and in the end everything you should come to expect in a partner.

In my moment of reflection, after I had uttered my 5 words, a core shaking statement of my own, all were silent, and then agreement, yes, this was it.

And finally after all that, the 5 words stood strong, they resonated, they gave me goosebumps, the fire was lit.

I was moving to Toronto.

 

fake it, until you make it.

I realise, that lately we have been talking so much in the blog about dating, the courting process and then  of course the full on relationships. Sometimes, the stories we need to share are not those that begin, or are in the middle, instead it are those that are near or at the end, the break ups can be the bigger teachers, the best life lessons, even those that we aren’t quite sure qualify as one.

You know, the faux breakup. Oh come on, stop the glazed over look,  you know the one, where the other party still has the key to your place, and you haven’t bothered to replace the locks, change the alarm code. You still eat dinner together 3 times a week, sex is completely off the table, because you both have enough sense (or so you tell your people) to refrain from making something extra complicated.

Sometimes you need validation from your people to in fact define whether or not what you have is in fact a FBU (faux break up).

Beau and I were having Sunday brunch with his brother McLean. McLean, well he is a bit of a ladies man, he is one of these guys that has a timeless look and style, he has a reputation and rightfully so. But with this, comes those first world problems.

For McLean, this is the faux break up, the limbo.

Let us be honest, we  FBU all the time, and not just in relationships, we FBU friendships, lifestyles, habits. We linger.

Why? Because sometimes we are scared of the leap, the move, the change, of letting go. We need to challenge ourselves, because in the state of discomfort, this is where the magic happens.

Sometimes we need to fake it. Change is scary, and unexpected change even more so. We can prepare ourselves to a certain extent for a shift but then all of a sudden it is  game on. We are forced to fight or flight. And when we do this, we choose to fake it until we make it, well this is when we fight, we don’t flight.

And to be relationship specific, how do you know it is a real break up? Well when you find out they have been given a ‘love name’ by the mystic cult god/leader they have given their life savings to and apparently it means ‘pearl necklace’ in Hindi, well that can be a pretty good indication.

And if it isn’t that obscure?

Well, if they have the key to your place, you could just start bringing an assembly line of dates home and have them all spend the night, legend has it between 7am-8am is when the faux ex most prefers to enter the lair.

houdini.

You all know what I’m talking about. The ignored text, blocking numbers on your iPhone, Facebook/Instagram deletes, using your concierge/doorman to inform a suiter that you no longer live at said residence. Or going so far as to claim a name change, fake city move, new religious affiliation (convent/vow of celibacy) or even the witness protection program.

Otherwise known as the Houdini. The disappearing act. We are all guilty of it.

Why do we pull a Houdini? Well this really goes back to our fight vs flight response when we feel like we are in a pressure cooker. For the masses, confrontation is extremely uncomfortable, it feels gross, and I believe deep down we are all inherently terrified of being the bearer of bad news, or to be so blunt, we are cowards, therefore we pull a Houdini.

With this in mind, I like to think that people are still inherently good, and not cowardly, so if this is the case and you are not a coward, when is it ok to pull a Houdini? Well this is a loaded question, because some people would argue that it is never ever ok.  I disagree, I think in some scenarios a Houdini is your best option. For example, if said suiter becomes a stalker, violent or insane, you are completely within your Houdini rights.

Now, what do we do if we’ve had a Houdini pulled on us? Well sometimes, it is that age old karma coming into play. You Houdini someone, someone else, somewhere will Houdini you. Other times it is completely out of the blue. I hadn’t had anyone give me a really good story in a while (terrified I might write about it, are we?) thankfully, one evening discussing ex’s and high expectations, a lovely gent shared that he had the ultimate Houdini pulled on him, when the girl he had been dating ran off suddenly with her ex to elope in Maui. Now this is a perfect example of a Houdini resulting in karma, as gent had discovered, she got divorced months later and boomeranged back to gent at attempts to reconnect. I sense gent, is not insane and therefore knows better than to get front row tickets to Houdini for an encore.

Now if we suspect a Houdini has been pulled on us, what timeframe do we enforce before we call off the search party? Red and I came to the conclusion that two weeks is sufficient, if the other party has not reached out to you within two weeks, do not send out a search party, consider this a dead duck.

If you are contemplating a Houdini, well like any grand act, I recommend you start with a strategy. You need to look at what the outcome(s) could be if you decide the Houdini is the best option so do some stringent scenario planning. Why? Well sometimes a Houdini is unsuccessful, especially when it is Vancouver and for some weird reason it seems to be like 1.5 degree of separation. You run the risk even in perceived safe zones that you may run into the Houdinized victim.  For example, I had a girlfriend hide under a chair outside 49th Parallel in Kits, then sneak across under a few tables, before rolling out the door and hightailing down West 4th.  It was by far the best stop, drop and roll vanishing act I had witnessed. Well aside from hiding under a coat on a mannequin during the Holts mid season 70% off sale…. I was desperate ok?

Look I get it, confrontation is uncomfortable,  don’t get bruises on your knee’s or get escorted out of Holts, if you’re going to pull a Houdini, do it with grace, and if you find yourself subject of one, let it go, it probably was a blessing.