| 9 San Marcos, TX Locals Weigh in on the Beautiful Tragedy of Letting Themselves Love |
I fall in love every day. Not with men, but with colors, with interactions, with routines and with the phenomenons around me. I love deeply and I cry easily. It’s a choice to live that way. It’s a choice to not build up a callousness to the intensity of feeling. I choose to look for the humanity in everyone I meet, because I see humans as the only timekeepers. The sun sets and rises, but humans and our connection are something that bring meaning to it all.
So, when I fell in love with someone for the first time, I fell hard. I fell deep. I felt the magic of all the love I hold for the world and held it in them. I lost myself in them.
When I felt heartbreak for the first time, I broke. The magic I saw in life and in myself flickered out.
I recently asked nine San Marcos locals about a heartbreak in their life, if it was worth the toll of falling, and how they dealt with the ending of that time in their life.
Keeping them anonymous, I interviewed a 40-year-old female, a 55-year-old male, a 28-year-old male, two 20-year-old females, two 21-year-old females, one 21-year-old male, and a 68-year-old female.
In this part one of a two-part series, a 55-year-old male, 20-year-old-female, 28-year-old male, and 21-year-old female give insight into…
PART 1
Here’s what they had to say.
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55-year-old male
“I knew there was a ticking time bomb somewhere in that relationship. I convinced myself that I could deactivate that bomb at some point.”
Her Campus: When you fell in love with this person, did it feel like you stepped into their world or did it feel like they stepped into yours?
Interviewee: I stepped into their world. I think as a result, I lost definition as to what my world was.
HC: Whenever the heartbreak hit, was it actually during the relationship or was it the break up at the end?
I: It was like a slow death in hindsight.
I haven’t had that same heart-wrenching heartbreak, because as you get older, you gain a perspective of where you’ve been and how much you’ve changed.
And I’ve grappled onto the better side of me and knowing how I react, say, to heartbreak, and I know what not to do. Knowing that, I make better decisions.
There’s nothing wrong with being sad, I just know not to be alone and carry it alone anymore.
I knew there was a ticking time bomb. Somewhere in that relationship. I convinced myself that I could deactivate that bomb at some point.
By then, I was already married. I don’t know what line there was or what line I crossed, but there was a moment in time that I realized I didn’t like that person, and that there was nothing I could do to change them.
That was probably a little bit more heart-wrenching than heartbreaking. When I came to that point, that’s when the bad decisions came in.
I probably mourned the relationship more while we were still legally married than I did when I signed the divorce papers. It was like running on four flat tires.
The infidelities that occurred towards the end were heart-wrenching because of the fact that there was nothing I could do to stop it. Thus, I continued the bad decision making.
You know, did I step into their world? I did. So it’s really a simple old fashioned love song. You know, ‘I can’t live without you.’ That was my mantra. ‘You defined me.’ I felt like I was standing on a single board on a skyscraper with no netting below me to catch me, alone.
And I was desperate to stay on that board because I hadn’t defined what my world was anymore. I lost it. Traded it in.
And ‘Without you, I was nothing.’ It was heartbreaking to me, realizing that ‘By putting you on a pedestal that I made you, until you became my God. And in the end you had forsaken me.’ [Editor’s note: ‘You’ refers to his ex-partner.]
I became a bit of a martyr.
HC: What’s something you learned about yourself after that breakup?
I: You’re talking about a moment of clarity. And I think the clarity came…When I signed the papers, I was like, ‘Thank God. Woo hoo.’ I was so over it. It’s a funny story. When I signed the papers, I was in jail. I was in a facility. And I just wrecked my whole f*cking life. I mean metaphorically, drove a car into a wall and kept backing up and just hitting the gas.
I felt like I had to punish myself. I wasn’t worthy of anything. When I signed the papers, it was like, ‘Whew.’ But the moment of clarity came when I stopped doing stupid things. When I made a decision that my life was not going to get any better unless I sought help for certain things in my life.
I reached out to people and let them know what was going on. And being honest- when I found honesty, to them, and whoever else, I found a new freedom. I found myself. That was the greatest gift I could have given myself, because I let you go at that point. And there was still a lot of f*cking damage control.
When you come out of a marriage, in my case, you have a kid. You have to deal with the aftershock. And it spent a lot of years not talking to, or actually, her not talking to me. She hated my guts. Unfortunately, it took my mom dying to bring us together.
The one thing I did, which was the most beautiful thing I could have done, which I wouldn’t have done back then- because I was married- was I learned to listen. I just learned to listen and shut the f*ck up. And accepted my fault. Today I don’t mourn the marriage at all. I look at it and use it as a foundation now. ‘This is what I don’t want in my life.’
I had one more go at it, and each time it reminded me of that first heartbreak when I was in junior high. I was so young. I didn’t know any better. And even then, the only thing I knew was that ‘You defined me and I couldn’t live without you.’ I was that needy little kid.
I realize I’ve changed my life. I can continue to change it, and I can do it ‘without you.’
When I came into that second situation where my heart was getting tugged and I knew I wanted something better for me to make a decision that didn’t affect ‘you .’
Because ‘you weren’t having it. You had a life.’ I didn’t. I came to Texas as a result.
HC: After that relationship?
I: No, it wasn’t after. It was still during. I went for a walk. I made a decision, talked to a friend, and said, ‘I’m doing it.’ I booked a bus ticket. Came to San Marcos.
The phone call I got, I was in San Antonio at the time. She goes, ‘I’m home. We don’t have to argue anymore. I’m going to take some food out to thaw off some steaks. You want a steak or do you want, I can go get us something.’ [I said,] ‘I’m not home.’ ‘Where are you?’ ‘I’m in San Antonio, Texas.’ ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘I’m going to go to San Marcos and I’m going to stay for a little bit. I’ll let you know.’ I found a new life.
That relationship taught me a lot of things. She’s a great woman, we still talk. I’ll call her up. She’ll call me up. The one thing she taught me was what attracted me the most- how I got really heart-connected with her: We liked to laugh. That was one good thing about that relationship. And then when I was here, something hit me. I told you about the moment when I said I didn’t like my wife.
I looked at her, I realized I didn’t like that person. It wasn’t until I got here that I realized I found the good in that other relationship and realized, if it ever happens again, if I ever find that person, it’s probably going to be my best friend.
I’ve met a lot of best friends and I’m okay with just friends right now.
HC: Did you learn anything about humans? Did you learn anything new about the world?
I: It was just that moment when I realized that the world moves on through heartbreak. When you go through a heartbreak, and you really care for someone, you really love that person, and you break off, it feels like you’re in the eye of a hurricane, and everything’s muted, and you’re alone. Your decibel levels are even, and everything else is going up and down.
You can’t express enough that you’re not feeling the same joy everyone else is feeling. The one thing that I’ve discovered is, I can feel that, and I can choose to either be alone or choose to find someone and let them know what’s going on. Therefore, not being alone no more. I think the most powerful thing anyone can do is clinging onto a friend, a life raft.
I love that we’re in a community where it’s open to us broken-hearted misfits. It accepts us. It kind of embraces us.
HC: How did you process once the relationship ended? Five stages of grief? Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance?
I: Denial. Oh, the relationships were built on denial. What’s the next one?
I was angry. I was resentful. You know why? Because ‘you’ weren’t behaving the way I wanted ‘you’ to. ‘You’ weren’t that vision that I saw and thought ‘you were,’ It’s all me. What’s the next one? Bargaining. Just say I traded it all in for a bottle of alcohol and a lonely house on a hill.
And forsake everything, including family.
You know, because ‘you’ became my world. My biggest bargain was I traded it in. I thought I had the deal of the century.
Depression. Let’s go to the root of that very moment your heart breaks, that very instant. When you hear or do something that you know will change the outcome of that relationship forever. That instant, that depression is insurmountable. That depression is life changing because you see no way out of it. It’s the end of the world. And when you come to the end of the world, there is no light.
HC: What about acceptance?
I: Acceptance is the greatest gift you could give yourself during a heartbreak.
That is the number one thing, to accept it’s over. And to accept those words you don’t like. To accept, ‘I don’t want to see you no more. I don’t wanna talk to you no more.’ And accept ‘I’ve gotta move on, or else I’m going to stay in the eye of that hurricane forever.’ The one thing that I remember someone told me, they said, ‘Look around here. Do you really think you’re the only one amongst, say, how many people here? A hundred people, who has felt what you feel right now?’ And look at them, they’re happy. This too shall pass.
I accept all that. I accept the heartbreak and the pain, and I accept the fact that it’s not going to always be that way. I have a choice now.
HC: If you imagine your highest self, your most healed self, and he’s looking back at the relationship you’re talking about, what’s his reflection?
I: I’m living it. I’m exactly where I need to be. I think you learn a lot from relationships- other problems, alcoholism, drug addiction and all that. They’re just a means to an end. There’s something in there for everyone.
I think what I’ve learned is that when you go forward, or actually, when you’re back there, when I’m that kid again, when I’m that 23-year-old brat, all fawneyed like a little 9-year-old over this gal, and two years later, there I am on an altar.
You kind of keep promising a better future. That’s one of the things, ‘I’m going to promise you the f*cking world.’ And what happens? They, if not you first, become disappointed when that future doesn’t happen. And those promises never come into fruition. I make the best of whatever I can do now. If I could tell that guy something, I would go back there and just say, ‘It’s not going to happen, dude.’
It’s happening right now. Dig in. Dig in. How can you make it better today? You know, how can you make all this better today?
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20-year-old female
“I learned not to take other people’s behavior so personally, because a lot of the time, it is more reflective of things about them that you can’t control. You can be the most loving and supportive partner on the planet, but if they don’t wanna make things work, you can’t make it work.”
Her Campus: When you fell in love with this person, did it feel like you stepped into their world or did it feel like they stepped into yours?
Interviewee: It was more of me stepping into their world, but there was an element of me trying to escape my own. It felt very safe and new and exciting. And it felt like I didn’t have to be situationally trapped in where I was prior to meeting them. I got to really expand my worldview, because they didn’t live here. They lived abroad, and they introduced me to a lot of things that I still have a very profound appreciation for now.
It just made me feel like I was getting this experience of something well beyond my age when I met them at 17. I felt like it was very new and exciting and this person could show me all these different things and I didn’t really have to just be myself anymore. It was like something that they were guiding me through or like reaching a different version of who I was.
HC: Whenever the heartbreak hit, was it actually during the relationship or was it the break up at the end?
I: It was a very drawn out process. It was something that I could see for so long, but couldn’t stop, because they weren’t willing to make the changes needed to stop it from happening. So, it was like an agonizing slow burn, where I could just see it continually going downhill, but being powerless and helpless to stop it because they just didn’t care enough. And it was heartbreaking two times over because it was upsetting that so many things were so simple to change, versus realizing they just don’t care enough to not let it happen.
They’re watching it with you, but either they don’t care enough about you or themselves, which was something I had to learn. It was a lot more about them versus me. Something would not let them put in that effort to let it happen. There’s definitely an element of it being a slow heartbreak. When it did finally end, there was this very weird sense of anger, but also achieving closure because I knew it was happening.
HC: What’s something you learned about yourself after that breakup?
I: You can give everything to a person, and it still can’t work out. It was definitely learning when to just let go and stop trying to grab hold of things and make them fit together and make them work when they just aren’t.
I spent so long thinking that if I just tried hard enough and was good enough and perfect enough in a relationship, that it would just work out. I had to eventually learn that love is not enough. It is so much more than just loving someone. You have to have that effort and that commitment to them and making things work.
That’s something you have to consistently choose, and it can’t just be from one end. I realized that I wanted so badly to be enough for them, that I was willing to overlook all the ways that they weren’t even bothering.
So it was an element of being like, I need to pick myself up a little bit more, have a little bit more self-respect, but also understand that I can’t fix everything. I definitely do have very perfectionistic attributes to myself, and it comes from this place of thinking, if I just do everything good enough, then nothing will go bad- I won’t lose anything if I’m always just doing enough for another person. But relationships don’t work like that. They’re not that straightforward. It’s not something that you can really intellectualize. Things just happen and it sucks, but it’s life.
HC: Did you learn anything about humans? Did you learn anything new about the world?
I: I learned not to take other people’s behavior so personally, because a lot of the time, it is more reflective of things about them that you can’t control. You can be the most loving and supportive partner on the planet, but if they don’t wanna make things work, you can’t make it work.
It has a lot of parallels between my parents’ relationship where you have one person giving everything and the other person just doesn’t care. And they’re willing to let things die.
They’re willing to watch it crash and burn, and your effort isn’t going to be enough. But I’ve also learned that there is a lot of love and learning that you can find in people. I try not to view it so much as just a heartbreak or just a relationship that ended, but a lot of lessons about what I want in a partner and the things that are really important to me moving forward in the future. Every experience and every person really is just like a learning experience.
HC: How did you process once the relationship ended? Five stages of grief?
I: Definitely anger and frustration, because I felt like I was articulating what I needed so frequently. And we were coming back to the same conversation. I was laying out like, ‘This is what I need from you. This is all I’m asking from you. I’m not asking for some grand gesture, I’m asking for effort.’
I feel like early on, there was more sadness, depression- that type of feeling, because I didn’t understand, and I felt like it was something with me. But the longer it went on, I could feel myself just having that anger. I couldn’t just let things go. I was like, ‘No, I’m going to make this work. If I just do more, then they’ll see what they’re doing is hurting me and that what they’re doing isn’t enough.’
This was as it was reaching an end where I was like, ‘Maybe I can just do something.’ But I was so angry at them, and I had so much built up resentment at that point, that it just got to a stage where I was like, ‘Even if they start doing these things, it’s not going to be enough.’ We’re too far gone at this point.
That was when I reached acceptance. I was like, ‘I can’t force myself to care about this anymore, because I’m just tearing myself down.’ The longer that I sit here and look at someone and say, ‘Can you please do the bare minimum for me?’ it’s a very pathetic feeling of asking for such small things that make me just feel like you care about me as a person or a partner. And then consistently fail to do so.
People say quite frequently that women get over relationships while they’re still in them. But I think it’s like this slow decline, where you kind of realize that you’re not getting what you need out of your partner. And it becomes really difficult for it to feel like this very sudden breakup when you’ve been viewing things going downhill for a while.
HC: If you imagine your highest self, your most healed self, and she’s looking back at the relationship you’re talking about, what’s her reflection?
I: I should have had more self-love. Sometimes I look back at the version of myself that I was when I first met him and when I was first in the relationship, and felt so deeply about all the things that were happening and would constantly beat myself up. And I just wish that I would’ve loved myself a little bit more. I just wish that there was a way that I could shake myself and be like, ‘It’s not worth it. Like, stop it, please. Love yourself, respect yourself.’ Because you know you’re going to find other people. Every relationship is a learning experience.
There’s so many people out there, whether it be romantic or just friends and experiences that you’re going to have. And in the moment, it feels like this person is your whole world, but a year out, you don’t really think about it anymore. It feels so real in that moment. It’s good to respect and honor those feelings, but as we grow, it should be more of an appreciation for those feelings, but being comfortable with the fact that they might leave at some point, but they’ll be replaced by something greater moving forward.
HC: Do you believe in love?
I: Absolutely. I mean, how could you not? Because there’s so many different forms of love, even just beyond romantic- even though I’m lucky enough to have found it now. I have so much love for my mom and my friends and just little things. I love the weather and I love flowers and all these little things that make me happy.
I feel like love is something that is very pervasive. We just look for it in the certain packaging of a relationship. But I don’t think that love is synonymous with intimacy or a partner. I think it’s just something that we can cultivate for ourselves and with other people.
But I don’t think that it has to be something external. I think that there’s a lot of love that we can channel into the things that we do and see.
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28-year-old male
“I learned that we naturally will like to cling to other people. I don’t wanna say in a leechy way, but almost in a way where we’ll magnetize to somebody even if it’s not our perfect person. We long for that social connection.”
Her Campus: When you fell in love with this person, did it feel like you stepped into their world or did it feel like they stepped into yours?
I: They stepped into mine, and then it kind of bled together. Because after so long, your lives just intertwine. I definitely felt like she came into mine.
I was doing my thing. She just kind of was doing what I was doing. And it felt so natural. I didn’t really have to think about it. So, she kind of entered into my world and then it was just going.
HC: Whenever the heartbreak hit, was it actually during the relationship or was it the break up at the end?
I: I think it was at the end. It wasn’t until she was gone that it was real. I’m the one who ended it. It was a little easier emotionally, because I was already checked out, and then I ended it. It wasn’t until there was that absence of her that I was like, ‘Dang. That was, that’s tough.’ Even though I knew she wasn’t my person, it was still tough.
HC: What’s something you learned about yourself after that breakup?
I: I found a lot of independence. Prior to ending that relationship, I was already doing a whole lot of things by myself. I would go canoeing, I’d play music, and I would go to the gym and I was doing all these things by myself.
When I ended it, it reinforced the freedom that we have. I did have that freedom before we left, but it didn’t really feel real.
Then once we were separated, I could go anywhere in life I wanted to go. I could go travel or I could go to the river. It just reinforced that I’m an independent person.
HC: Did you learn anything about humans? Did you learn anything new about the world?
I: I learned that we naturally will like to cling to other people. I don’t wanna say in a leechy way, but almost in a way where we’ll magnetize to somebody even if it’s not our perfect person. We long for that social connection.
And sometimes that’ll shoot us in the foot because we’ll link to someone that’s not really our person, just because we want to be with somebody.
HC: How did you process once the relationship ended? Five stages of grief?
I: I didn’t go through denial because I cut it myself. I was a little angered with myself at times because I was the one who cut it off. I thought for a minute, like, ‘Am I being too picky? Who am I?’
‘I’m out here just like breaking hearts. Like I must be a horrible person.’ But it wasn’t long, drawn out anger. Sometimes I’ll feel that if I break up with somebody. Just like, ‘Damn, I’m a bad person.’ But you gotta have standards and stuff. Didn’t bargain because I broke up with her. Depression- definitely was bumming for a little while again. Since I broke up with her, it wasn’t super long.
I feel like I checked out of that relationship a few months prior, a few weeks prior. I can’t really pinpoint it. So it wasn’t too bad there. And then acceptance, that was a couple weeks after the breakup that it felt real.
Because after being with somebody every single day and then not being with them at all, it was a little weird. It was like, what, five years? Something like that. Five, six.
HC: If you imagine your highest self, your most healed self, and he’s looking back at the relationship you’re talking about, what’s his reflection?
I: I’d say it’s a double-edged sword, because I wanna say to choose wisely, but also you can’t be too nitpicky. I feel like I’m always, like Kanye says, ‘I’m always good at finding what I don’t like the most.’ I feel like I always do that. I always will find something about my person that I don’t like.
And it’s a bad habit, but at the same time, you have to be aware of those standards that you hold for your life and yourself. I’d say to be self-aware and try to find a balance between the two. You need to have your standards, but also you can’t be too picky. Everyone has flaws and I guess you gotta choose if that person’s worth not overlooking it, but accepting, you know? And working with.
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21-year-old female
“I did learn that that same strong love I feel from friendship, platonic friendships, they’re equally as important. Now I would never let that happen again.”
Her Campus: When you fell in love with this person, did it feel like you stepped into their world or did it feel like they stepped into yours?
Interviewee: I stepped into their world. I think I was just young. I changed my routine more than they changed their routine.
HC: Whenever the heartbreak hit, was it actually during the relationship or was it the break up at the end?
I: During. I think definitely the heartbreak happened before the breakup.
HC: What kept it going on?
I: I think it’s fear. It feels like the end of the world. I don’t know if it’s because I was younger in this or something, but it just hurts.
HC: What’s something you learned about yourself after that breakup?
I: So much. Looking back, that’s probably what I’m proudest of. That’s why I don’t see it with sadness anymore, because I think that I learned so much about myself and how to not change myself or change my routine for somebody.
After that, I discovered so much about myself and even loving myself more too, and knowing that when I’m with somebody, I want them to be an addition, and I don’t wanna have to change anything. Like, not anything, but certain things for them. Like it feels more mutual.
I feel like it was learning how to live my life again. Eventually, I was just way happier in the end.
HC: Is there anything that you learned about humans or the world?
I: In general, it’s just experiences. I did learn a lot about humans. And by that, I mean friendship. Sometimes I didn’t prioritize my friendships as much, because I was excited to be with this person. I did learn that that same strong love I feel from friendship, platonic friendships, they’re equally as important. Now I would never let that happen again. I just learned how awesome it can be and how important it is to have other humans outside of the relationship that you are giving equally as much attention to.
HC: How did you process once the relationship ended? Five stages of grief?
I: It was literally one day at a time. I go this day, I’m not going to contact this person. And then, tomorrow’s a different day and I would just count the days until eventually I lost count.
It would be hard for me at first. I’d still want to reach out even though I’d just gone through this heartbreak, and the breakup was official, and having to not give in because I know that wasn’t good.
Just taking it a day at a time- that was my stages of grief. Just doing things like going and doing something where I feel like, ‘I don’t have anybody to go with.’ Well, I can just go do it by myself and have fun and not limit myself to having to have somebody to do things with.
It starts like that. I made it through today. I made it through tomorrow. And eventually I feel like time is what helps me the most. I don’t think there’s anything immediate that helps me feel better other than just time passing.
HC: Have you ever had to see a friend experience a breakup where you were able to see it from an outside perspective?
I: At first, I really wanted to help this person because I’m like, ‘Oh, but you don’t see it.’ Because I see it now, I’m like, ‘You’re going to be so much better after this.’ I feel like naturally I want them to see it so bad, because it makes me sad that my friends are sad.
But eventually, I’ve just learned that everybody’s going to learn their own way. And everybody’s different when it comes to how they deal with things. I’ve learned to see it and sympathize, but just let it happen and let them go through it.
I feel like the experience generally does make you stronger in the end. There’s no way to fast forward it, even though I want to.
HC: If you imagine your highest self, your most healed self, and she’s looking back at the relationship you’re talking about, what’s her reflection?
I: I think that I’ll look at it almost the same as I do now because when I look at it now, I’m not sad about it anymore. In fact, I’m glad it happened. I think I’ve just learned so much about myself through those experiences and about communicating with other people and what I like and what I don’t like.
Every time it makes me wiser. I always find it better. It’s weird to say, but I’m like, ‘Okay, I dealt with this. I know that there’s always something out there.’ So I just look out on memories. To me, it’s just really a memory and I learned something from it, whether it was good or bad. It’s just all just part of life.
HC: Do you believe in love?
I: Yeah. I do. I don’t think I’ve found it yet, but I definitely believe in love. I love my friends genuinely so much. And I know that exists.