before i get started, let me put a disclaimer on here. this post is yet another one about the breakup and the process of moving on. if you’re tired of me talking about it and don’t care anymore, feel free to not read this. i won’t take offense to it. i just needed to write this post so that i could get my thoughts out of my head and could start to somewhat understand what i’m thinking.

disclaimer #2: this ended up being really long. um, sorry?

last monday night, i wrote this:

i’m not saying i’m going out and looking for people to date. i’m perfectly content being single. sure, i would absolutely love to meet a girl, fall in love with her (and her with me this time), get married, make little jonathans, and live happily ever after but i’m not out looking for it.
but i can see myself not being as hesitant to open up to the people around me and beginning to actually trust them.

i thought that was true. i really did. but now i’m not so sure.

i almost feel like i had a relapse. yeah, that sounds weird, but hear me out.

everyone deals with different things in different ways. that’s a given. i’ve seen people break up and immediately become friends. i’ve seen it go the complete opposite way than that. i’ve seen it somewhere in the middle. i’ve seen people deal with the breakups through finding someone to replace the person, through drinking, through religion, and a ton of other ways.

and quite frankly, i tried a few of those ways.

last august, everyone seemed to have a theory on how to make things better for me. i tried a lot of them. after pretty much all of them failed, i ended up going with the one theory i didn’t want to do:

“you just have to cut her off completely.”

that was hard. i can’t describe how hard it was to cut ties with her but even more so her family. having to delete her parents and brother off of facebook and that stuff felt terrible and quite frankly hurt almost as bad as having to delete her.

but it worked.

things started getting better. then things started getting a lot better. then things started to even get great. we didn’t run in the same circles at all. i think i saw her maybe twice all of the spring semester and that was in passing while driving. i did what i didn’t want to do.

and it worked.

fast forward to now. we still run in completely different circles. i never have to worry about seeing her when i go to class. it’s not a problem. the out of sight out of mind thing was working. bryson was right. things were really looking good. they were even looking so good that i wrote that post last week.

then this weekend i feel like i relapsed.

this weekend was the first time i’d been to pennsylvania since her birthday in 08 which, coincidentally, was when everything started going downhill. different things throughout the drive reminded me of different things but i was fine. they weren’t bothering me. like i’ve said before, the memories were there but they didn’t hurt anymore. i knew what i was in for before i even got in the car so i was ready for the different memories that were popping up.

so friday night i went out and had a good time. saturday morning we drove the rest of the way to the football game, got everything set up, and hung out for a few hours before the game started. about an hour or so before kickoff, i headed into the stadium to start working. i wanted to try to get a few shots of warmups down on the field.

after about 20 or 30 minutes, i went to the sidelines to talk to a friend of mine. we’re standing there behind the bench, about 15 feet or so from the stands. we’re facing the field talking about god only knows what, probably making fun of something. i turned towards the stands to see how our crowd was and bam, there she was standing at the railing. in a distance of about 15 feet or so was every single thought and emotion that i had tried my best to hide or forget over the past 13 months.

i think the best way i can describe what happened is this:

imagine a fat kid goes on a diet. he’s doing a great job, losing weight. he’s even starting to look pretty good. he’s eating better, maybe even exercising more. he’s cut out all of the food that wasn’t good for him and didn’t even go to those restaurants anymore. then, out of the blue, completely unexpected, someone puts a free pizza that had just come out of the oven right in front of him.

of course he’s going to eat it. it’s too hard to turn down. the shock value alone would be so much that he starts eating a slice before he even realizes it.

that’s what happened to me.

before i even realized it, all of these thoughts and memories started coming back. it took me a second to even notice it. when i did, i immediately grabbed my camera and walked to the complete opposite side of the field. i had to get away from the pizza before i started to eat the entire thing.

now, before you start thinking the wrong thing, know that me saying this is not me saying that i want to get back with her at all. that’s nowhere near what i’m trying to say. she’s a completely different person than she was when we dated and i’m a completely different person than back then.

but the memories were still there.

we all have that one restaurant back home or in some other town that is freaking legit. it’s our favorite restaurant ever and all of our friends have to eat there when they come to town because it’s so awesome. in reality, that restaurant hasn’t been very good in about five years. the food is cold and it’s a little overpriced. but when you were a kid, that place was awesome and that’s the memory you still have in your head.

that was me. that’s what happened.

the things that started coming back weren’t who she is now but rather who she was when i fell in love with her.

the thoughts i started having weren’t ones about how i wanted to be with her now but rather how i missed scratching her back til she fell asleep at night.

the thoughts i started having weren’t ones about how i was ready to go out and open up but rather how far i have to go until i can let someone in to that place that she was.

i relapsed.

one of the first things the experts tell recovering addicts to do when they screw up and have a relapse is to admit it and put it behind them. that’s what i’m doing with this. maybe this post meant nothing to you, but it’s one that’s taken me over an hour to write. it’s been 1200 words that i’ve read over and thought about over and over. it’s something that i’m legitimately scared to hit “publish” on.

but it’s what i needed to do.

my name’s jonathan carone.

and i slipped up. big time.

say your prayers and take your vitamins.

have a nice day.

-jonathan