"I would dance over her dead body"

Last night I went out for the first time since He and I broke up. And guess what? I actually had a really good time.

I got together with a friend I hadn't seen all summer at my favorite restaurant/bar in town, where I proceeded to have 2 black Russians followed by a gin and tonic (all this before 10:30 p.m.). Oh, yeah, I'm drinking again, bitchesssss! So, the alcohol had a lil bit to do with it, but really it was the realization that I've got a bunch of really cool people here in Midwestern City that I'm happy to call friends. Anywhoozle, he told me all about how he proposed to his girlfriend a couple of weeks back, and I congratulated him (and meant it), then told him all about how He and I broke up. Then we drank some more.

We ended up meeting up with more friends I haven't seen all summer, drinking more, and stumbling from bar to bar. Around 1:00 a.m., it's me and four dudes at bar #3, and the conversation turns to breakups. Apparently e'erbody 'round here has been doing it. One of the late arrivals tells us that he and his girlfriend had just broken up a couple of weeks back. "It didn't affect me all that much," he claimed...and then proceeded to spew vitriol for the next forty minutes. Now, the guy's got a right to be upset: his live-in girlfriend of two years apparently woke him up the morning after he had taken a big exam (and not too long after coming back from an overseas vacation where he took her to meet his family) and informed him that "we need to talk." She told him that while she had been away doing fieldwork in the summer, she met a guy that she is in love with and that he came back to Midwestern City with her, so could he please vacate their flat so that lover boy, who was waiting outside, could come in. Ouch!

So, yeah, he definitely has the right to be upset. And it doesn't help the situation that they're still working on a project together. So, we were all being sympathetic listeners, even as he proceeded to describe how selfish, inconsiderate, controlling, stupid, and fat she is. He continued to divulge way too many personal details, which none of us wanted to hear since we work with her too. And that's when he said it:  "I would dance over her dead body." And he meant it...all three times. "What? I don't want to punch her in the face. I don't want to strangle her with my bare hands. I'm a good guy." (This is where I lost it, laughing so hard...AT him, for thinking that not wanting to murder her makes him a good person.) "But if she died, I would dance over her dead body." Pretty harsh.

I was thinking about His death lately, too...but in the complete opposite way. You see, Hurricane Irene is ripping up the East Coast right now and is set to hit East Coast City tonight. But unlike my friend, I was so terrified that something would happen to Him. I even offered (only half jokingly) for Him to take refuge in Midwestern City. "Are you serious?", he asked affectionately. "Well, if it's a matter of life and death...", I responded.

We had a wonderful relationship. We still have a wonderful relationship--a different sort of relationship, but wonderful nonetheless. So, when it was my turn to talk about my break up, I had nothing bad to say about Him. Absolutely nothing. Drama was never a part of our relationship. For the longest time, we never fought. And when we did (rarely), we never raised our voices or called each other names or stormed out. And we always resolved the issue before bed (and, if the fight was in bed, we'd spend three minutes back to back before one of us turned over and spooned the other). Even our break up--the actual conversation itself--was entirely loving and amicable, an oddly twisted but perfect reflection of what our relationship had been like.


I wonder what's more difficult: a particularly bad breakup, where the person has broken your heart and given you reason to never want to speak to them again, or a "good" breakup, where there are really no hard feelings and where, in fact, there's still a lot of mutual love. I always thought it was the first, but now I'm not so sure. Your thoughts?