Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Part Two

It's been a little over three weeks since the official breakup with make-up/break-up and I joined my sister and some girlfriends for a leisurely brunch and Bloody Mary's at a local hot spot.  My dear, wonderful sister came out to visit from the Eastern Time Zone to cheer me up, keep me company...and keep me from picking up the iPhone to text/call/Facebook the make-up/break-up.

Today, our discussion revolved around that age-old conundrum about breakups:

To be in contact...or not to be in contact...that is the question.

Make-up/break-up is an avid Facebooker.  I update my status about once a week and check in once or twice a day despite the fact that it is easily and constantly accessible on my iPhone.  I do enjoy Facebook because it's a great way to keep in touch with the majority of my close friends who actually reside in cities outside my own.  However, in relationships, it can be a tangled web.

Make-up/break-up blocked me on Facebook for a brief time in the first week after the breakup.  It hurt...a lot, but in some ways, I saw it as a blessing.  No more temptation to check on what he's doing, who he's friending, and who he's posting pics with.  Then, we had one totally disastrous phone call in which he admitted what he did and then proceeded to be angry with me about the whole situation.  And...the crying lump of girl came out again.  Aargh.

After that, I decided that I wasn't ready to talk to him on the phone.  In trying to be the bigger person, I accepted his repeat request to be my friend on Facebook despite my trepidation.  He texts me everyday, and out of respect for the nine months of joy we had, I do answer. My Facebook relationship status is empty and I generally have tried to be even less active.

But in maintaining even this small amount of contact, am I prolonging the sadness and keeping myself from healing and moving on?  Is it better for both of us to just cut things off completely for awhile? 

This is really foreign territory for me.  My previous ex's and I have never been in touch.  My ex-fiance never contacted me after he moved his stuff out of our house, and I never had a desire to contact him.  Weirdly enough though, I did hear from his new fiancee.  And even more weird, his aunt sent me a friend request on Facebook...last night.  We have been over for three years!

Could make-up/break-up and I actually be friends?  I don't know the answer to that yet.  At the very least, we have the unfortunate bond of being in the same small specialty and knowing a lot of the same people.  In the meanwhile, I will still respond to his texts within reason.  However, the hurt is still too fresh for a phone call.


There have been a couple interesting essays about the whole Facebook and relationships conundrum.  Check out these links from NPR and the New York Times Modern Love column:

Digital Tears: Breakups and Social Networks
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123501060

The Boundaries of a Breakup
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/fashion/22love.html

Risk-Taker

I was shocked and horrified by the loss of three amazing people in the last week: a female neurosurgery resident at my hospital (car accident post-call), a friend from college (working in Haiti for the CDC during the earthquake), and the 21 year old luger from Georgia.  All phenomenal people doing risky things while pursuing their passions.

When I was watching the Olympics last night, one of the news anchors talked about risk-takers.  About how the athletes who compete in the ever increasingly dangerous Winter Games are the types of people who love to live a risky lifestyle.  Interestingly, the anchor said, "You probably don't want to be married to one of these."

Though I don't generally hurtle myself down slick ice at 90 miles per hour, I think that in our own way, surgeons are the Winter Olympians of medicine.  What we do every day is risky.  It requires physical stamina, concentration, and being on top of your game every single time we step in the OR.  It requires practice, perseverance, and a certain degree of out-of-body experience.  It requires a huge time commitment.  It requires special equipment that can make or break the operation.  It requires us to put aside our fear...of needlesticks, infectious diseases, and injuries...for the greater good.  If a host of these factors don't come together, it means a bad day, not just for us, but for the person under our hands.

Surgery attracts a certain risk-taker personality, just as the risky sports of the Winter Games.  I think this translates not only into our professional lives, but in our personal lives, too.  We also take on risky sports (as an aside, I went skiing again today and all I wanted was to go hurtling down that mountain with the greatest of ease), fast cars, and alcohol. 

Hell, I realized this week, that I take risks in relationships.  I love a challenge, and I feel that there is no challenge in relationships that can't be undertaken.  Orthodox religion, long-distance, long-term long-distance, complete opposite, rich/poor, much younger/much older.  No matter the warning signs, I've tried it.  I've crashed and burned too many times to count.

So, as I work on recovering from yet another crash, have I learned my lesson?  Will I take the bunny hill instead of the black diamond?  The clinic life instead of the big whack?  Now, what's the excitement in that.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Part One

It is hard to quit something "cold turkey."  Generally, as a resident you have plenty of distractions to keep you busy to numb the pain.  The pager is going off, there are patients to take care of, there are surgeries to concentrate on.  But as the chief resident, a lot of the annoying, but wonderfully distracting stuff goes away.  Instead, I am left with an overactive mind and more time on my hands than I've had in four years.

So, during residency, what do you do to heal a broken heart?

Last time I went through this rigmarole, I was a second year resident dealing with the end of my engagement.  More on this one later.  Luckily, I was on call every other night and spent a lot of time just being sleep-deprived and numb.  Oh yeah, and I also took up running.  Because I might as well be getting in shape while I'm literally running away from my problems, right?  In time, the pain just sort of went away.  While this was a very productive way to avoid dealing with a break-up, it probably was not the best way to actually deal with the messy emotions that come with ending a long-term relationship.

This time around, I decided that since I have the luxury of more time, I would actually deal with the messy emotions instead of hiding them in a box with his belongings and giving them away to Goodwill.

So, instead of picking up my iPhone to check out his profile on Facebook, I call my family and friends to talk.  I went skiing again and practiced my new sport on the slopes--it felt good, peaceful, athletic, and I conquered the green runs. I don't know if it's the surgeon in me, but when I'm mad, I have a need for speed.  I am accepting every single invitation to go out and mingle.  Even though all I want to do is curl up into a ball, sit on the couch, and be a crying lump of a girl, I am forcing myself to put on make-up, cute clothes, and rejoin the human race. 

Overall, I am allowing myself to grieve this.  I am accepting each emotion as it comes, examining it, dealing with it, and then putting it away.  I want to be mentally healthy, and I want my heart to be open for whatever the future may bring.  Most of all...I don't want to be bitter about love.

Interestingly, in the past, after a break-up, I have tried to jump into a new relationship or a hook-up as quickly as possible.  But this time, I have no desire to do such a thing.  Maybe it has to do with the finite time I am going to be here in the Central Time Zone.  Or maybe, I've grown up a bit and realized that the best and only rebound is the kind that's happens in a basketball game.