getting over…

getting over… sounds suspicious…hahaha. do we ever get over / under anything or anyone? idiomatically speaking? as an idiomatic expression, we find the term “get over IT”

GET OVER IT

This is used when you need to forget something. 1) Sample: I can see that he hurt your feelings. You shouldn’t hold it against him. You need to get over it. 2) Sample: You’ll never get even with him. You need to get over it. Other related idiomatic expressions. 1) What’s done is done. 2) It’s water under the bridge.

From: http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/english/index.pl?read=2127

i would cite print references but my books have been left pretty much to themselves back home in the philippines, gathering dust and being eaten away by god-knows-what creatures… sigh.

so how do you get over (or under) anything? especially a breakup? suicidal tendencies aside (background music: Michael Bolton singing “How am I Supposed to Live Without You”)… most people i know would jump into the next “relationship” (or one night stand) for rebound relief. so much can be said of the rebound guy or rebound girl… in sex & the city, one of the three other characters (except Charlotte, i think, who’s actually the target of the comment) says that “… you’re not supposed to marry the rebound guy.” and it would be so like Samantha who’d have said: “you’re just supposed to have fun (with him) and move on…” like the Olympic torch, you grieve, get the rebound guy, rid yourself of bitterness and regret while having fun… pass him on to the next disaster case, and then move on to real dating. sigh. if only it doesn’t ever backfire. like they say, about the best-laid plans… they can & do get awry. so maybe you should ask your friends who eventually did get serious with their “rebound person”… did things work out? are they still together? married perhaps? or did they discover that giving something that casual a go simply was a big mistake?

then we can all learn from Addison Montgomery (played by Kate Walsh) of Grey’s Anatomy fame… you put him / her in a tiny little box and put that box in your pocket. better yet, throw it away, hehehe (evil!) or stick it somewhere, some place that will be eventually forgotten. well, that’s what she did with her ex-husband Derek (Patrick Dempsey) when they got divorced, put him in a teeny weenie box which she put inside her pocket. in a way, that would be some kind of “compartmentalization.”

Noun 1. compartmentalization – a mild state of dissociation

Compartmentalization, disassociation, dissociation – a state in which some integrated part of a person’s life becomes separated from the rest of the personality and functions independently

2. compartmentalization – the act of distributing things into classes or categories of the same type classification, compartmentalisation, assortment, categorisation, categorization grouping – the activity of putting things together in groups indexing…

From: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/compartmentalization

so what some people do is to relegate the ex in a certain part / section / chapter of his / her existence, a drawer in his / her life if you will, and keep the memories there… both hurtful and happy. what used to be a his & hers drawer is back to being a purely his or hers. alone again with a drawer or a box that will remain closed, tightly locked up… unless decided upon otherwise by the owner.

No, fly me, fly me, far as pole from pole;

Rise Alps between us! and whole oceans roll!

Ah, come not, write not, think not once of me,

Nor share one pang of all I felt for thee.

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d;

Labour and rest, that equal periods keep…

– Alexander Pope (Eloisa to Abelard)

in the movie, Jim Carrey’s character Joel and Mary (Kirsten Dunst) go through a procedure to erase memories of a loved one, basically to purge their lives of the pain of having to re-establish their lives as single people after intensely happy / painful relationships with their exes… Joel’s being the free-spirited Clementine (Kate Winslet) and Mary’s being Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), the married doctor of Lacuna, the medical facility offering this memory erasure service. ofcourse, the procedure involves targeting specific memories associated with the subject to be erased. and all sensations, recollections, associations… both pleasant and unhappy, affection, dislike, elation, despair, suffering and joy… anything felt for the other person, any event associated with him / her, any fabric, hue, scent, weather, scenery… any object, any thing… will be obliterated, eradicated… no thing will be left. not even ashes. nothing.

on the other hand, Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) offered her friend Rachel (played by Jennifer Aniston) her own pearl of wisdom as Rachel struggled to get over Ross (David Schwimmer) being in london for his wedding (to Emily Waltham). Phoebe, pregnant with her brother’s triplets, asked Rachel to get a picture of Ross. she instructed Rachel to look at the photo intently…. immediately after which phoebe gave her a quick slap on the cheek, calling it aversion therapy so that Rachel would associate pain with images of Ross. hilarious huh?!?

but don’t some people do that? try focusing on the pain and all the bad memories… him being a major asshole… her being a pain in the ass, a bitch. super asshole and super bitch… going over and over those times the person was late or never turned up, didn’t even bother to call nor send a message, those times you would see the person online… wondering why on earth your boyfriend / girlfriend is online and you are clearly online but he / she has chosen to ignore you. totally. completely. how compromising pictures of him / her with another girl / guy turn up on the net and you are the last one to know. or when you find out he / she invited all of his / her friends to his / her parent’s anniversary… but not you. or if he /she does get you in… you’d be introduced as one of the guys… oh wow, that must hurt… after eight months… eight f***ing months… one of the guys my ass! You did his / her term paper for him / her first and got yours in late… you could be neck deep in shit, cramming for your exam, buried in debt… but every time he / she calls… you come running… every single f***ing time. what a cliché… but clichés become clichés coz they are all too real… and all too common.

some women i know tear up his stuff into shreds… make a puzzle out of his favorite jersey… some guys try to run over the new boyfriend, burn his car (like how George behaved irrationally in Desperate Housewives)… destructive behavior… sometimes harmful to others and sometimes to oneself…

others grieve quietly and stay away from the light… huddled in the dark and drowning in tears. while some stoically look into the distance and act like nothing happened, keeping everything and everyone at bay. cold and untouchable. silently brooding.

but the pain, the need to forget… no matter how much we try to delude ourselves… is pretty darn real. we get hurt, maimed, damaged… by the very people we set our hopes on. the people we made plans with. even just secretly, to ourselves.

even in dead end relationships— i call them relationships with an expiration date, whether long or short term ones… where there is simply little to no chance of you ending up together, ever. ever. the loving can so easily overtake all rationality… the passion, all-consuming… after setting everything on fire, eventually leaves everything in ashes. all hopes and dreams shattered into smithereens… gone. and you, once more, are devastated, shipwrecked and alone on an island of desolation & despair. how pathetic. but many have been there. the pain sears through the flesh and you can literally feel your heart aching & your throat closing as you choke back the tears.

and I don’t wonder why, in the film “Someone Like You,” Ashley Judd’s character Jane wanted to have her amygdala removed… so she won’t have to associate certain smells with Ray (Greg Kinnear), the guy who dumped her to get back together with his ex after convincing Jane to give up her old apartment and move in together with him in a new expensive place where he failed to turn up when he was supposed to. Jane, unknowingly, had been used by Ray as his rebound girl. anyway, Jane survived.

i have survived several breakups… each time i thought it was the end of the world… the end of my world. and what is ironic is this, whether or not you initiated the breakup, the hurt doesn’t just go away, it doesn’t get any less. and, sorry to my exes… I behave this way: i return stuff. anything he purchased for me, i have to return it. one time a guy refused to pick up the stuff I wanted to return to him… so i sent it over by courier. hey, i know it’s not at all the best kind of behavior… but it works for me. he can just throw it away i guess. i can’t bring myself to dump it in the garbage or burn it… so I have to return it. pictures have no side effects on me so i usually just keep them.

you’ll have your own way of surviving… of getting over. whatever works for you is fine, as long as it doesn’t ruin you or the other. bridges may be burned… it doesn’t matter. the baggage tends to get heavy as we go through life, and we sometimes have to let go so we can move on with our lives. continue life among the living… with family & friends.

we all do. we must.

have to.

life has to go on. our goals must still be set.

we can eat our sorrow for a while and gain a few kilos 🙂

then we have to get back on our feet again, take the next step and start moving forward.

© Lovely Claire Dangalan, 2010