I met Tom in September 2005 at a bar called The Burren in Somerville, Massachusetts. I was twenty-six years old, he was twenty-four. Later, you'll read the story about how we met. You'll read a lot about our story. There aren't enough pages to tell you the entire thing -- what you will mostly read about is how our relationship ended in November 2014. But you'll get a good snapshot.
I didn't set out to write a book about my relationship with Tom. I didn't set out to write a book at all. The essays, poems, and pieces of fiction in this book are part of a yearly blog project I began six years ago in response to my first "Tom divorce." Ours was a complicated relationship, as you'll learn, but when we'd had our first significant falling out in October 2010, I needed something to redirect me, so I gave myself a challenge -- a New Year's Resolution -- to write every day, which I did, starting January 1, 2011. By the end of the year, some unexpected things happened. First, Tom and I made up, and also, people were reading what I was writing. They were asking, "What's next?" So I did another blog in 2012, this one all fiction, and another in 2013, this one were friends gave me "three things" I used those to write something, another in 2014, a choose-your-own adventure novel, and then in 2015, my goal was to use music to inspire my writing every day. My relationship with Tom ended about a month and a half before the start of that blog, which created something of the perfect storm. As you read, you'll learn the importance of music to me and the importance of music to Tom, a very diverse and talented musician. You'll learn about the importance of music and creativity in our relationship. And you'll also learn what I learned the hard way every single day -- music can be emotionally gruelling. The result: my Singalong 2015 blog turned into a public journal of sorts, a place where I worked out a lot of the stuff churning through my brain. By the end of the year, I'd written a book about Tom, and I still don't know exactly how I feel about that.
Recently, I was reading a blog post I'd written back in August 2014 about how social media was completely changing the definition of "norms" in social interactions and in it, I wrote about chronic over-sharers, stating:
"I know for a personal fact it's possible to be going through hell and keep it offline. Airing your sad or dirty laundry to the masses probably isn't going to heal you the way you want. At least I know it wouldn't heal me.
I was chatting with my friend Elliott the other day about how I was writing this post and how when I was fairly young, my mother had warned me, pretty sternly, to be very very careful about what I chose to put in writing because you cannot take that back. What you put in writing is forever. You can say things in the heat of any moment and while those things can certainly have a lasting effect, the memory of how that shit went down will change over time until it completely fades or has distorted enough that its reliability isn't so grand anymore. But the things you write down can be read over and over and over again. And things you write on the internet? There's no eraser big enough to destroy that evidence. Think about that before you post. This is your legacy."
When I stumbled across this passage I'd written, I stopped and thought about how I still agreed with these ideas while also recognizing I had gone against that grain and gotten very personal in the 2015 blog. My intention wasn't to "air dirty laundry" -- it was to make sense of the information, both rational and not, swirling in my brain. It was helpful and healing and progressive and forward-moving. And not just for me -- first one friend then another then another came to me, messaged me, commented right there on Facebook about how what I was writing was helping them get through difficult breakups, divorces, and other similar situations. As the blog went along, I felt easier and freer about being completely honest -- naming names and bringing specificity into the picture. You'll notice I don't start that way on January 1st. It takes several months before I stop dancing around the issue and dive right in. That's the authenticity of respect I have for those who are involved in this story, even Tom. Especially Tom. When 2015 began, I was truly hurting. I was making big life decisions. I was digging deep and looking for understanding and growth and the power to keep evolving. In all sad honesty, I had no reason to believe he was doing similar work at all -- in fact, everything I heard from our many mutual friends and acquaintances was that he was continuing on the same destructive path -- and that also broke my heart.
I say all this now as a way to prepare you for what you're about to read -- how it was written and why. It will feel disjointed at times and it will change tone quickly. It will repeat some information and also likely leave out things you wish you knew. It's the modern day equivalent of reading my journal as I processed the end of the most important relationship of my life to date. But the reason I wanted to pull the relevant blog entries and put them into book form is because they were helpful to me and helpful to others so maybe they could be helpful to you. The universality of breakups is at the core here and even though the details of your story will be different than mine, my hope is that what I was thinking on January 1st versus what I was thinking on December 31st will show the possibility of growth and healing and change.
I got through this "Breakup Year" with the help of countless friends and loved ones, a daily yoga practice, a daily writing practice, and listening to the podcast You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes.
So let's get into it.
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