The Breakup

This post picks up approximately 3.5 hours after the last post ended, which means 1 am on Monday, February 27. However, my computer broke two days later, so this post was delayed by technical difficulties, not emotional ones. (Just to be clear.)

(my computer is still broken, but studying homework is boring and I'm in the library)

(this blog post definitely crosses the line from "post" to "journal entry", so if you're not interested in reading a detailed account of an 18-year-old breaking up with her boyfriend, skip to the bold summary paragraph at the end)

So for the past little while, something had been niggling at my mind regarding my relationship with Mason. I hadn't really tried to figure it out, because it was either going to be nothing, or it was going to be a huge deal, and things were so perfect that I didn't really want to have to change anything if it was the latter. However, after praying and reading my scriptures as usual on Sunday night, I decided that I needed to pray about it, and be willing to accept whatever it was.

We had to break up.

At this point, it was about 1:30 in the morning, so I promised that I would get back to Him on this, and went to bed. So I woke up the next morning, and over the course of getting ready for school and the half-hour walk to campus, I thought through what had happened. I knew that I was going to follow the impression, and I could see that this was going to end in our breaking up. However, even though the logical/faithful/I-know-how-I'll-end-up-reacting part of me could see where this was inevitably leading, the emotional part of me was still completely opposed to the idea of ending the best relationship I had ever had.

Monday mostly consisted of crying until the emotional part of me decided to join the rest of me.

(Spoiler: if I had known how this was going to turn out, I wouldn't have been nearly so emotional. But, I didn't, and my experience with/conception of breakups had been that the person is basically out of your life, so I spent a lot of unnecessary emotional effort reconciling myself to that. It was a great test of faith, though, so I'm kind of glad I couldn't see how this would go, even though it was completely awful at the time.)

Mason and I always sit together at the Tuesday Devotionals, so I decided to talk to him right before. I obviously didn't want to break up with him via text, but I also didn't want to completely spring this on him either, so I texted him the night before with a vague message that left him worrying over every possible scenario. (I felt bad about that, but I still think it was the kindest option of the three.)

He met me outside the Marriott. The conversation was so completely different from what I had expected that I felt like I was in a parallel universe. At the same time, I later felt like a complete idiot for not realizing it would play out the way it did.

I was sure I was going to cry. Instead, I didn't even come close, because talking to Mason makes me feel better about anything, even when that thing is breaking up with him. It was hard to get out the words "We have to break up", but after that, the discussion proceeded the way our discussions always go: we talked about it rationally, we identified the right thing, and we agreed to do it. We decided that we had probably gotten ahead of ourselves emotionally before his mission. (In other words, things were going so well that we had to break up, because my life is one big exercise in irony.)

The entire discussion took about five minutes, made me feel better instead of worse, and generally left me feeling completely surprised. Apparently, Mason wasn't done making my brain explode, because after a short pause he said "So...do you still want to sit with me for devotional?" My brain kind of fizzled out at this point, and automatically responded, "Sure."

It was very quickly apparent that we could continue to be friends - after all, as Mason said, "It's not like we're suddenly going to hate each other just because we can't hold hands." We sat together at devotional, he walked me to chemistry, I went over to his apartment before guitar. Except for couple-specific behavior, nothing really changed, because nothing else needed to change. We're still the same people we were before the break-up, just no longer a couple.

The last week has been pretty bizarre as I adjusted to this. Sometimes it's funny - when I was at his apartment before guitar last Tuesday, we were chatting casually as usual, and that morning's breakup came up, so we started talking nonchalantly about that. His roommate listened for a few minutes, then interrupted, "Wait, wait, I haven't been on Facebook yet today...you two broke up?!" Pretty much every reaction has initially been a mixture of incredulity and confusion, because people aren't used to seeing two people remain such good friends, and talk about breaking up in good humor. It's provided for a lot of entertainment.

Other times, it's sad. After all, while this breakup is about a 0.5 on a scale of 1 to Adele, we still broke up. It still means losing, even if it turns out to only be temporarily, an amazing relationship that was going perfectly. Really though, in the long run, it's not that different. When he gets back from his mission, either I'll still be single or I won't, and if I am single, either we'll still be interested in each other, or we won't. Just like before. It's only the next 4 months or so that are different. So, while it was overall a pretty good week, it came with a fairly constant undercurrent of sad. Usually it was just kind of in the background, until it came time to say goodbye or goodnight. Then, when it was a hug and a "see ya" instead of a kiss and "I love you", or a "Good night" for a text instead of a more heartfelt one, was when the change was the most apparent and I was really forced to look at what was gone. But, on a more cheerful note, I'm pretty much used to that at this point and it doesn't really bother me anymore.

On a related note, sometimes it just drives me into overthinking and worrying, which is a pretty consistent theme of how I interact with people, so that's not really a surprise. Before the breakup, I knew exactly how our relationship was, and I knew what I was doing. This week has been a week of adjustments, while we figured out when we were still going to hang out, how much we would be texting, whether we would sit together at different things, etc. It bothered me, just the feeling of uncertainty and not being entirely sure where I stood or how to act. It didn't help that I'd spent Monday preparing myself for a completely different outcome, so I had to un-prepare that and then get the concept of "friends" through my mind. Sure, we were friends last semester, but I was also pursuing him.

It honestly took me a kind of embarrassingly long time to actually internalize "friends", considering that being friendzoned is pretty much the story of my romantic life. Sure, this time it was voluntary and we both knew we were interested in the other, but still. What added to the overthinking problem is I couldn't just stop at overthinking, I had to start overthinking my overthinking with "What if Mason totally already has this all figured out, and my overthinking is making me look ridiculous?" However, at this point, a week later, I finally feel like I've got it figured out. And that leads me to the last thing this is...

Sometimes, I'm happy. This turned out a trillion times better than I expected. I know I'm doing the right thing. I can already feel the benefits of changing our relationship - yes, I still feel like I love him, but I can tell that we are both moving in a much healthier direction for his mission. And honestly, if it works out, we'll have plenty of time to focus on the romantic aspect of our relationship, and it's probably good for us to build the friendship part of our relationship now instead, because that will still be valuable. Besides, if it doesn't work out, then friends is what we were really meant to be.

The thing that makes me happiest is knowing that I was able to follow the Lord. I've been able to follow the Spirit on other matters, some of which were small, and some of which were pretty big. But, I always knew that those things never really required completely trusting the Lord over myself and surrendering my will to his. And, yeah, there will obviously be other big things in my life that will probably be just as difficult, if not more so. Still, this was the most difficult decision so far - it was honestly probably the thing I've valued most, and I had to be willing to give it up, maybe even completely. I've always wondered and worried, "When something like this eventually comes, will I be able to do it?" And I did it. The experience just fills me with confidence that yes, when the Lord commands, I will go and do. Even when it's hard. Because the Lord knows best, and his commandments will always turn out for the better, even when I don't see it right away.

Plus, it makes me feel more confident about my future romantic relationships, whether with Mason or someone else. It just sets a good precedent to me, that I'll do the right thing. Because honestly, if there's one thing in my life that I don't want to mess up, it would be this.

I feel like I'm rambling, so I'll wrap it up now with the summary for people whose world doesn't revolve around me:

I felt prompted to break up with Mason. It was an extremely difficult prompting to follow, but I did. We decided that we were too emotionally involved before his mission, and that the prompting was because we needed to scale it back. We are still totally good friends. If I'm still single and we still like each other after his mission, we'll see if it works out then. In the short term, we've been voluntarily friendzoned. This week has included some emotional upheaval and adjustment to the new type of relationship, but overall I feel happy about the course we're on and proud of my decision to follow the Lord.

Oh, I have to share one last thing:

Alex doesn't really believe we're broken up. While at the gym on Friday night (no boyfriend and no computer drove me to it), she kept arguing that "nothing's different!" (Because no kissing, hand holding, cuddling, sweet nothings, etc., and spending Friday night at a freaking gym - me! - apparently doesn't count.) So on Sunday, Mason and I sat together for the CES devotional and he walked me home afterwards. We were sitting on the couch, eating sour cream pound cake, caramel sauce, and ice cream (because I spend Fast Sundays making inordinate amounts of food), when Alex came in. She greeted him with "Hello, not-boyfriend-of-Jaclyn's!". Mason basically replied with "Yeah, that's what my roommates think too", which made her think she must be right.

We pointed out that just because multiple people believe something, it doesn't mean it's true - after all, look at how many people are Democrats! (She's a REALLY hardcore Republican.)

Well, now that I've deviated from the summary, I have no idea how to end this post, so I'm launching into another anecdote. Mason and I both really like music. When we were dating, we discovered, to our amusement, that we no longer identified with the songs we'd identified with our whole lives - we were no longer the single-unrequited-love songs, and it was a funny shift. However, at least in-a-relationship-love songs exist. Songs about voluntarily friendzoning yourself? A little harder to come by. "Good Riddance" by Green Day is pretty much the only one we've found so far, and we have to voluntarily interpret the lyrics non-sarcastically instead of sarcastically, which is a change for both of us.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.