It's probably not advisable to listen to the slow version of Breaking Up Is Hard To Do by Neil Sedaka when you've just ended a relationship. The line that is guaranteed to set you off in floods of tears is the when Neil sings Remember when you held me tight. And you kissed me all through the night.
When I was a kid, I used to have one of Neil Sedaka's albums. It was called Laughter & Tears: The Best of Neil Sedaka Today. I played it to death. It was a bitter-sweet mix of melodic tunes, emotive lyrics that may well have been penned by either Burt Bacharach or Carol King: all of which were pulled together by Neil's dulcet tones and backed up for good measure with a full Vegas styled orchestral accompaniment.
I absolutely loved that album. It had something for every mood or occasion. I have no idea what became of it. But I know what became of me.
I got on with my life with other soundtracks.
When I started this relationship, I wasn't that long out of another one. One that I shouldn't have had. But as each and everyone of us knows, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
I was quiet vulnerable and wanted to embrace life again. I wasn't looking to get entwined in something so soon, it just happened, and it felt good. It wasn't like anything else I had been able to establish as the person shared the same uncanny amount of personality traits and interests as me.
So why did it all go wrong?
I have a friend who ended a long term relationship. One which she may never recover from. Each time she gets it together, the other person (even though he is in another relationship) taunts her endlessly by pressing all of the buttons that he knows will hurt her the most. Whilst I realize that there are always two sides to a story, I find it unforgivable of him to keep making her suffer in this way. I have no idea what he gains from this especially having just announced his engagement to his current significant other.
Maybe his new lady doesn't fulfil a certain aspect for him that he knows he can only obtain from his prior. Whatever his motivation, I wish he would just draw a line and allow my friend to move on.
There is only one word for him and it rhythms with Emily Blunt.
Moving on is very hard, especially when you have shared so much.
Good, bad or indifferent, those are your shared memories and no one else'.
Throughout the time I was party to this relationship, we dealt with a lot; love, loss, guilt, anger, sickness, shock, insecurities and unresolved grief.
I have no idea how we managed to fit so much into the last year without going mad. But maybe we did and that's why we called it a day. In the end when the bar tender called last orders, we hadn't taken the time to plan it all out and see the bigger picture instead of trying to fit it all in when we could.
I am not going to lie to you. I envy those who stick it out and work it out. I covet their ability to keep on keeping on. I sometimes wonder why that has never been something I have yet to achieve in my life with my own significant other. I worry, as the years go by, that I never will.
It's been a rough year outside of all of this. One which has made me weep openly about events that I had no control over. I have had to deal with multiple people and emotional situations that have been very difficult to deal with. I am only one person after all, and sometimes I just needed a cuddle outside of all of that (both mentally and physically) to help me manage it all. I am far from perfect, and have my own issues to deal with. So maybe this wasn't the best year to find my happy ever after.
It's all left me reeling, as you can imagine, with a mass of insecurities and misgivings about love and life. But everything is relative.
Those days spent alone in my room with Neil playing his album on the turntable sometimes feel like that belonged to someone else.
In the end, it will all be fine because it always usually is.
But it's been harsh, hard and sad. Harder than all of the other times when I had to finishes the book I had been reading, close it and put it back on the shelf.
Think of all that we've been through.
And breaking up is hard to do
