When I was a newspaper reporter, I always wrote the 'Holidays and Grief' story each year.
Every newspaper across the country does it. Back then, it was important to me to let people know that not everyone loves the holidays.
There are people grieving lost loved ones or lost marriages, and for those people, being surrounded by love and happiness and the holidays is a really painful time.
I am not grieving a lost loved one or a marriage, but that doesn't mean that I don't have grief in my life.
I haven't exactly made it a secret to anyone, but if you don’t know, here’s this: the past two or three years of my life have completely sucked. I keep waiting for a light at the end of the tunnel, maybe a little glimmer of hope somewhere, to let me know that everything will be all right in the end.
But right now, it feels like I'm stuck in a cycle of misery. If misery was a competition, I would win it in a land slide in my age category.
I deserve a trophy for all of the misery that I've gone through.
Before I delve into this further, I want to say that I'm very aware that there are people in the world whose problems are worse than mine. I know there are people who lost family members to the pandemic. I know there are people going through cancer and other horrible diseases.
So before anyone judges me too harshly on this not-so-rosey blog post, I want to point out that I think it's okay to not be okay.
Let me repeat that: It's all right if you're not all right.
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The only thing I've done for the past few days is listen to the 10-minute version of Taylor Swift's All Too Well.
I haven't done anything. I wake up, cry to that song, sit in my place in my pajamas all day, eat ice cream and wine for dinner, and cry and cry and cry to that song.
It took me a few days to watch the short film. The first few times I tried to get through it, I made it to the 5-minute mark, before I shut my laptop and stormed off and cried somewhere.
The line that got me: You're mad at me for something I don't even remember doing.
That one hit a little too close to home for me.
That happened to me.
---
I've read and I've heard a lot of people talking about their reactions to this song. Some people don't understand how such a short relationship can wreck you. Some think it's about revenge.
Here are my thoughts, from what I experienced personally.
The kind of person she's singing about in that song is a person who is really hard to explain to people who haven't met someone like that before.
They're charming. They're good looking. They tell you everything you want to hear at first, like how beautiful you are, how glad they are that they met you, how they like being around you.
They build you up to tear you down.
I think the kind of person she's talking about in this song is a lot like the kind of person I had in my life once. That kind of person is lacking basic human emotions that most people have. Things like empathy, sympathy, compassion, embarrassment, and pretty much any other normal human emotion are completely missing from their personality.
They don't have any of it.
I'm not a psychologist or a therapist, but my theory is that these people are born without it. Some people call that a psychopath, a sociopath, or a narcissist.
Here's what I call it: evil.
I like how people assume that her ex is embarrassed right now because this song came out.
He's not.
He doesn't give a shit.
---
The first crack in my relationship appeared less than a month into it. I knew it would end. I knew I should have walked away.
I didn't.
When I finally asked him about it, the first crack, he said: "I don't even remember doing that to you."
One of my favorite comments I read about that specific line in the short film: "I didn't know gaslighting looked like that."
Neither did I.
---
---
I cried tonight thinking about this. It’s probably the most humiliating thing that's ever happened to me in a relationship.
I let him set the pace for everything. He wanted me to meet his parents first, then he met mine. I met his friends first, and then after some hesitation, he met mine (red flag I didn't catch at the time).
He invited me to Thanksgiving with his family, and I went along with it.
We sat down to eat lunch on Thanksgiving day, surrounded by his family at the kitchen table. His nephews had drawn everyone placemats on paper, and they wrote a poem on his placemat for him.
The poem had the word "love" in it.
When my then-boyfriend read the poem out loud, he did not say the word "love." In front of his entire family, and in front of me, instead of saying the word "love," he laughed.
He shoved the paper off to the side, and no one said a word about it for the rest of the day.
Or ever.
I was there
I remember it all too well
---
I should have ended that relationship. He gave me 1,000 reasons to end it, and I stayed through it all.
I wish I had known then what I know now.
I want to shout it from the rooftops to every man in the country right now: don’t take a girl home for Thanksgiving if you don't love her.
Don't give her hope that isn’t alive.
Let her spend the holidays with her family, where she's loved, wanted and appreciated, instead of her crying alone in your childhood bedroom afterwards.
What happened? You. That's what happened. You.
----
And you called me up again just to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
I'm a crumbled up piece of paper laying here
Cause I remember it all
They say all's well that ends well
But I'm in a new hell every time
You double cross my mind
You said if we had been closer in age, maybe it would have been fine
And that made me want to die
---
The thing that gets me about breakups? There aren't any consequences for bad behaviors, especially cheating.
Nothing bad happens to a guy when he cheats on a girl. Breaking up with a girl isn't a consequence, in my mind, because he just goes to the other girl to get what he wants.
That's what pisses me of the most about this guy. He humiliated me in front of his entire family, and he got away with it.
I know my life is better off without him in it, but it pisses me off that everyone in this story has a happy ending, except me.
The guy moved on, the girl he cheated with moved on. None of this even phased them, not even a little bit, not even at all.
I'm the only person that's still mentally scarred by this.
That scar is not going to heal anytime soon. Maybe not ever.
---
So, Taylor Swift, thank you for releasing a 10-minute version of the world's best break up song, right when I needed to hear it.
When you're going through misery, I think it's pretty common to think that you're the only person in the world going through it.
And then every once in a while, you hear a song that changes everything. And maybe fixes you, a little bit, too.
---
"All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor's Version)"
I walked through the door with you, the air was cold
But something 'bout it felt like home somehow
And I left my scarf there at your sister's house
And you've still got it in your drawer, even now
Oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze
We're singing in the car, getting lost upstate
Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place
And I can picture it after all these days
And I know it's long gone and
That magic's not here no more
And I might be okay, but I'm not fine at all
Oh, oh, oh
'Cause there we are again on that little town street
You almost ran the red 'cause you were lookin' over at me
Wind in my hair, I was there
I remember it all too well
Photo album on the counter, your cheeks were turning red
You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin-sized bed
And your mother's telling stories 'bout you on the tee-ball team
You taught me 'bout your past, thinking your future was me
And you were tossing me the car keys, "fuck the patriarchy"
Key chain on the ground, we were always skipping town
And I was thinking on the drive down, any time now
He's gonna say it's love, you never called it what it was
'Til we were dead and gone and buried
Check the pulse and come back swearing it's the same
After three months in the grave
And then you wondered where it went to as I reached for you
But all I felt was shame and you held my lifeless frame
And I know it's long gone and
There was nothing else I could do
And I forget about you long enough
To forget why I needed to
'Cause there we are again in the middle of the night
We're dancing 'round the kitchen in the refrigerator light
Down the stairs, I was there
I remember it all too well
And there we are again when nobody had to know
You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath
Sacred prayer and we'd swear
To remember it all too well, yeah
Well, maybe we got lost in translation
Maybe I asked for too much
But maybe this thing was a masterpiece
'Til you tore it all up
Running scared, I was there
I remember it all too well
And you call me up again just to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
I'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here
'Cause I remember it all, all, all
They say all's well that ends well, but I'm in a new Hell
Every time you double-cross my mind
You said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine
And that made me want to die
The idea you had of me, who was she?
A never-needy, ever-lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you
Not weeping in a party bathroom
Some actress asking me what happened, you
That's what happened, you
You who charmed my dad with self-effacing jokes
Sipping coffee like you're on a late-night show
But then he watched me watch the front door all night, willing you to come
And he said, "It's supposed to be fun turning twenty-one"
Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it
I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it
After plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own
Now you mail back my things and I walk home alone
But you keep my old scarf from that very first week
'Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me
You can't get rid of it
'Cause you remember it all too well, yeah
'Cause there we are again when I loved you so
Back before you lost the one real thing you've ever known
It was rare, I was there
I remember it all too well
Wind in my hair, you were there
You remember it all
Down the stairs, you were there
You remember it all
It was rare, I was there
I remember it all too well
And I was never good at telling jokes, but the punch line goes
"I'll get older, but your lovers stay my age"
From when your Brooklyn broke my skin and bones
I'm a soldier who's returning half her weight
And did the twin flame bruise paint you blue?
Just between us, did the love affair maim you, too?
'Cause in this city's barren cold
I still remember the first fall of snow
And how it glistened as it fell
I remember it all too well
Just between us, did the love affair maim you all too well?
Just between us, do you remember it all too well?
Just between us, I remember it (Just between us), all too well
Wind in my hair, I was there, I was there
Down the stairs, I was there, I was there
Sacred prayer, I was there, I was there
It was rare, you remember it all too well
Wind in my hair, I was there, I was there
Down the stairs, I was there, I was there
Sacred prayer, I was there, I was there
It was rare, you remember it
Wind in my hair, I was there, I was there
Down the stairs, I was there, I was there
Sacred prayer, I was there, I was there
It was rare, you remember it
Wind in my hair, I was there, I was there
Down the stairs, I was there, I was there
Sacred prayer, I was there, I was there
It was rare, you remember it
--
This blog post is what happens at 2 a.m. the same week you find out that you're having surgery over Christmas break for a non-life threatening, but very life irritating problem.
Let me have my moment of misery.
I'll get better. Eventually.
