An essay contest for the New York Times has recently caught my attention and current interest. They asked college students to write about the perception of love and relationships in the modern world. This will be my submission.
Didn’t Jew Know?
By Lydia Martin
A couple of weeks ago I was broken up with for being liked and cared about too much. At first glance, this may seem absurd, but the intricate and complicated explanations underlying the situation are worth the words it will take.
We met unexpectedly. But in the midst of busy lives, we found each other at precisely the right time to be found. He was full of certainty, while I remained a mystery even to myself. His spirit awakened my senses, and I was finally able to feel something after years of quietly hiding from hurt. I remember the first time we spoke. I remember liking him instantly. And I remember my heart practically jumping into my throat when he asked me to go to dinner with him. The novelty that exists in a budding relationship is exhilarating, exciting, and intoxicating. But that is also precisely why it is dangerous.
The six months we spent growing together are undoubtedly some of the best moments of my life, leaving a trail of wonderful memories in my mind. We performed the typical couple tasks, which generally include hand-holding in the car, cuddling under a blanket on the couch, “watching” movies we never actually watched. While these activities make us feel wanted, deserved, adored, they are not what really creates or defines a relationship. The relationship comes when silence is comfortable, words are no longer necessary, and the heart begins to speak for itself.
Our relationship became real, I think, after we spent three amazingly perfect days in Tybee Island during our school’s winter break. It was early December, I just turned twenty-one, and we had been absolutely enthralled with one another for about two months. The car rides were full of laughter and music, stories and stand-up comedy routines. We arrived in Tybee to find it utterly deserted. With the exception of a few locals and time-share owners, the little beach town was solely ours to explore. And we did.
We stumbled along the sidewalk, full on champagne and high on each other’s company. We walked across the pier with cold hands in pockets, pondering the emptiness of the beach in the winter and the tranquility that naturally comes with it. We watched the sun set over the drifting shoreline, while keeping each other in our peripheral sight. As the night silently crept up on us, we walked back in search of food, more champagne, and more conversation.
That night we became who we were together. We fell for each other more with every passing minute, excited for our similarities and content with our differences. It was the best, healthiest, and most fulfilling relationship I have ever experienced. And that is exactly why it was the hardest to give up.
Of course it was raining the day he broke up with me. I blissfully walked with the raindrops and avoided the puddles on the way over to his apartment. We went to his room, and as soon as he decided to sit in the chair near the window rather than next to me on his bed, my head and heart began to feel heavy with the weight of looming tears.
Then he began to speak.
He told me he cared about me, and liked me more every day. He also told me that this was the problem. It was a problem we would never find a solution to depsite our constant struggle to desperately try. We ended the relationship through hazy, uncertain words.
And then I left, forcing my tears to stay behind watering eyes a few minutes longer and holding my heart in the now lifeless palm of my hand. For the next three days, I cried; I tried to write, cried some more, ate Moose Tracks ice cream, and cried in between scoops.
The hardest part about breaking up is made even more torturous by the booming technology that cultivates the world of social networking. I saw every picture, every post, every moment of his life that was no longer a part of mine. I could literally feel my heart breaking. I thought I would never be happy again. But as much time as it takes to make a relationship thrive, it takes twice as much to learn how to let it go and let it be.
I’m still in the process of allowing myself to feel okay. The strange and difficult limbo that followed the break up can be summed up in the fact that nothing was wrong with the relationship. I had nothing to blame, no one to be angry with, and an awful lingering desire to keep him close, if only in friendship. But romantic relationships require distance and separation from an intended future friendship. The heart needs time to heal and feel whole in the absence of a lover’s embrace. We must learn to be fully happy with ourselves before we can truly be happy with someone else. I find immense comfort in this notion because I now realize that as much as I adored every single moment we spent together as an “us,” he could never love me and accept me entirely as I am. He could never really allow every seemingly minute aspect of my being to be an enduring part of his. I was, unknowingly, the ghost in the machine of our relationship, blinded by, and consumed with romantic feelings for someone I could never be with forever. He was saving me by breaking up with me- from myself and us.
People come into our lives every day, and they serve a purpose. They act as transitional elements, synthesizing our existence into something meaningful- and beautiful. We need human contact; we need to feel wanted. It's an innate part of us, and it is why we co-exist. It's why falling in love feels infinitely surreal, while losing a loved one feels like nothing will ever be the same in the world. The impact we hold over each other's lives is one of the strongest bonds in the physical world, and the most influential agent we have in the mental realm. I think that is one of the hardest features of our relationships with others: we allow ourselves to be intimately impacted by other people. We have to, because if we didn’t, then life would lose a lot of its meaning. I’m not suggesting we define ourselves by others beliefs, in fact, that is precisely what we shouldn’t do. But I am saying that we are human beings full of feelings that will most likely be acted upon. We have to be okay with these feelings, and find peace within ourselves, before we can properly let another individual affect us in myriad facets of life and love.
I cannot, and will not, regret the decision I made to date an outstanding Jewish boy. I entered a relationship I knew could never last, and as a result, I learned more about myself and life than I ever thought possible. I live with infinite, infallible memories of reading The New Yorker in the sunshine, making coffee at 8 A.M. on Saturday (Shabbat) mornings, and sharing stories of young life on the Hudson in Tribeca. These memories will never fade or lose meaning. They are a part of me. He is a part of me. And as Tennyson once said, “I am part of all that I have met.” In this, I find hope; for that, I find comfort.
