My first good and proper heartbreak came at 24, in a bedroom in Noe Valley, while I was wearing nothing but a pair of underwear. They were a dark grey and slung low across my hipbones, a very thin and soft cotton. I loved them.  The big bang happened after about four hours of fighting, the sort of unnecessary back-and-forth fighting that entails confused sobbing, then some yelling, then some quiet trying-to-understand, some crying and sad pleading for answers, and then yelling again. It was about 3:00 in the morning. Right then and there, as I watched and cried and yelled and once stupidly threw the keys across the room in a ridiculously dramatic gesture, he packed up everything he’d had at my apartment. He threw his large camping backpack over his shoulders and hoisted up his suitcase, both crammed with belongings that had migrated to my house over the months we’d fallen in love, through evenings at the bar where we’d met, weekend jaunts to nowhere in particular, and the long road trip we’d taken to Colorado and back. Without anything left to say, he turned away from me and walked slowly, a little unsteadily down the staircase to my front door. He left. I began wailing in earnest. Days later, during a horrible and painful phone conversation when he ill-advisedly called me to check and see how I was doing, he told me he could hear one last painfully long and drawn out “No!” as the door closed behind him. I said I imagined he could. In fact, I said imagined the entire neighborhood could. He related what had happened when he walked outside, bent forward slightly with his camping backpack on his back and his heavy suitcase in his hand. There were two people on the hood of his car. Of all the cars on the entire block, these two people, this couple, had picked his car. They were making out, intent and blissfully unaware beneath the street lights, against the white car in the black night. He stood there, burdened but dry-eyed, staring at them for a few moments, until they realized he was there. They looked at him, at his bags, and up toward the blazing lights of my apartment, where I was still crying. Glancing back at him, they quickly slipped off the hood and disappeared toward Mission Street. I was in bed when he called to check on me. I was in bed a lot that first week. I didn’t move much except to go to work or, when home, to the bathroom or to go to the kitchen, where I’d put the smoothies people brought me into the fridge. My collection of smoothies, anywhere from one-half to two-thirds full, slowly amassed on the cool shelves. The small and brightly colored army of slowly-melting fruity drinks were ready for me, their straws standing at full attention. It was no use. The breakup diet was in full effect, and those hipbones began to poke through ever more prominently. Then one day, after about a week had passed, I swung out of bed. It wasn’t that I had somewhere I wanted to go. After all, everywhere was terrible, because everywhere was without him. But terrible as it all was, my skin prickled and I knew lying there was more terrible. I couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t, with that feeling of slowly dying inside - although to be honest, after a week, the dying feeling was marginally better than it had been the week before. Maybe I’d perish, but not as horribly. So I started to walk. I walked from that same bedroom to downtown San Francisco, through The Mission, along Market Street, up into the edge of the Tenderloin, down past the busy shoppers near Powell and Union Square. I walked up the hills of Noe Valley and the Castro, up over to Buena Vista Park, to the top of Haight Street. I walked down Dolores to take Mandarin classes from a little tiny woman who had taught Mike Tyson to speak Chinese in prison. I walked to coffee shops, where I sat with a book and tried not to cry in public. I walked to overpriced food stores where things slowly started tasting like food again, albeit unnecessarily expensive food. I walked to nowhere in particular. Sometimes I talked to people. Usually I didn’t. The thing about walking in a city is you get to know it very well. You see houses you’d never discover in a car, make your way to streets you’d never find your way to if you had a specific destination, hear new languages and arguments and laughter and music. I’ve walked from 5th and 2nd to 72nd and 8th, from Logan Circle to the Library of Congress through the Mall to Georgetown and back again, from one arrondissment to another and then another. Each one of those walks has made the city unfold for me, given me my own secrets and memories, helped make the city mine. But this walking was different. This was never about the city. It was staying in motion until it all fell away, walking as long and as far as I needed to until I quite literally walked it off. Until I felt better. And of course, as we all eventually do, I did.  Years later, I laugh when I think about the whole thing, ridiculous wailing over-the-top heartbreak included. That’s how far I walked. I kind of think I never stopped. Here I am, still walking. And as for the underwear, I still have them too.
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My first good and proper heartbreak came at 24, in a bedroom in Noe Valley, while I was wearing nothing but a pair of underwear. They were a dark grey and slung low across my hipbones, a very thin and soft cotton. I loved them. 

The big bang happened after about four hours of fighting, the sort of unnecessary back-and-forth fighting that entails confused sobbing, then some yelling, then some quiet trying-to-understand, some crying and sad pleading for answers, and then yelling again. It was about 3:00 in the morning. Right then and there, as I watched and cried and yelled and once stupidly threw the keys across the room in a ridiculously dramatic gesture, he packed up everything he’d had at my apartment. He threw his large camping backpack over his shoulders and hoisted up his suitcase, both crammed with belongings that had migrated to my house over the months we’d fallen in love, through evenings at the bar where we’d met, weekend jaunts to nowhere in particular, and the long road trip we’d taken to Colorado and back. Without anything left to say, he turned away from me and walked slowly, a little unsteadily down the staircase to my front door. He left. I began wailing in earnest.

Days later, during a horrible and painful phone conversation when he ill-advisedly called me to check and see how I was doing, he told me he could hear one last painfully long and drawn out “No!” as the door closed behind him. I said I imagined he could. In fact, I said imagined the entire neighborhood could. He related what had happened when he walked outside, bent forward slightly with his camping backpack on his back and his heavy suitcase in his hand. There were two people on the hood of his car. Of all the cars on the entire block, these two people, this couple, had picked his car. They were making out, intent and blissfully unaware beneath the street lights, against the white car in the black night. He stood there, burdened but dry-eyed, staring at them for a few moments, until they realized he was there. They looked at him, at his bags, and up toward the blazing lights of my apartment, where I was still crying. Glancing back at him, they quickly slipped off the hood and disappeared toward Mission Street.

I was in bed when he called to check on me. I was in bed a lot that first week. I didn’t move much except to go to work or, when home, to the bathroom or to go to the kitchen, where I’d put the smoothies people brought me into the fridge. My collection of smoothies, anywhere from one-half to two-thirds full, slowly amassed on the cool shelves. The small and brightly colored army of slowly-melting fruity drinks were ready for me, their straws standing at full attention. It was no use. The breakup diet was in full effect, and those hipbones began to poke through ever more prominently.

Then one day, after about a week had passed, I swung out of bed. It wasn’t that I had somewhere I wanted to go. After all, everywhere was terrible, because everywhere was without him. But terrible as it all was, my skin prickled and I knew lying there was more terrible. I couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t, with that feeling of slowly dying inside - although to be honest, after a week, the dying feeling was marginally better than it had been the week before. Maybe I’d perish, but not as horribly. So I started to walk.

I walked from that same bedroom to downtown San Francisco, through The Mission, along Market Street, up into the edge of the Tenderloin, down past the busy shoppers near Powell and Union Square. I walked up the hills of Noe Valley and the Castro, up over to Buena Vista Park, to the top of Haight Street. I walked down Dolores to take Mandarin classes from a little tiny woman who had taught Mike Tyson to speak Chinese in prison. I walked to coffee shops, where I sat with a book and tried not to cry in public. I walked to overpriced food stores where things slowly started tasting like food again, albeit unnecessarily expensive food. I walked to nowhere in particular. Sometimes I talked to people. Usually I didn’t.

The thing about walking in a city is you get to know it very well. You see houses you’d never discover in a car, make your way to streets you’d never find your way to if you had a specific destination, hear new languages and arguments and laughter and music. I’ve walked from 5th and 2nd to 72nd and 8th, from Logan Circle to the Library of Congress through the Mall to Georgetown and back again, from one arrondissment to another and then another. Each one of those walks has made the city unfold for me, given me my own secrets and memories, helped make the city mine.

But this walking was different. This was never about the city. It was staying in motion until it all fell away, walking as long and as far as I needed to until I quite literally walked it off. Until I felt better. And of course, as we all eventually do, I did. 

Years later, I laugh when I think about the whole thing, ridiculous wailing over-the-top heartbreak included. That’s how far I walked. I kind of think I never stopped. Here I am, still walking.

And as for the underwear, I still have them too.

Source: Flickr / ohheygreat

58 Notes/ Hide

  1. jcarl reblogged this from ohheygreat
  2. doublejack said: ❤❤❤❤
  3. openareas said: <3
  4. episodesandaccidents said: I’m trying to come up with an adequate response to this but it seems like someone stole all the big words from my fridge magnet poetry set…
  5. claviusrobinsky said: Thank you for this.
  6. william-co said: This is a wonderful piece of writing. I want to say something about how the “getting better” was just to do with the exercise from walking, but that would spoil it. So I wont. This is brilliant, I can’t praise it enough. :)
  7. drydenlane said: so good. leah, its a little unfair that you’re an amazing writer, a talented photographer, and a brilliant scholar. and pretty to boot.

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