Breaking Up & What it Says About You

As I try to walk on the straight and narrow--stopping only for the important things in life like street corner hot dogs and shiny pennies thrown on the streets of Brooklyn--it seems that everyone around me is breaking up. And although every break up causes a different type of break down--I can't help but wonder, "What does your break up say about you?"

Whether it's been five months or six years, there's a sense of sadness that greets you in the morning and an amount of hurt that hugs you to sleep at night. People believe in the myth that if you're the one doing the "breaking up" as opposed to the one who got dumped--things will be peachy--but that's a false sense of relief. No matter what side of the breakup line you're standing on--in the end, you have a rough time ahead. Just ask Jennifer Lopez and Mark Anthony about their break up/divorce; no amount of double-sided breast tape can hold those two together.

My friend Sarah recently ended her six-month romance two weeks ago and she'd be able to move forward except that the guy won't stop calling, e-mailing and texting her to come back. I don't blame him, she's quite the little firecracker-hot mama type that you don't want to let go of. So why did it take Sarah six months to figure it out, "it's time to break up." She did what many of us do--she ignored her heart's red flags and kept hoping things would change. But when he confessed his love for her a few months back--and she wasn't able to reciprocate--her heart's auto-pilot took over and came in for an abrupt love-landing.

Another couple, Danny & Mark, broke things off after 10 years. They reached a point where they both noticed they couldn't see eye-to-eye with one another and the relationship suffered. A feeling of desperation washed over them like dirty pool water that had been peed in. That pee-water feeling caused them to make one of the hardest decisions ever--to go their separate ways. If you know Danny & Mark, you'll see their facebook status is still "in a relationship" because changing that status--according to Mark will make it official and they're dealing with a lot right now and making it public would be extra pain sprinkles on their break-up sundae.

In both cases--the break up was done respectfully and handled in an adult manner with both parties realizing they couldn't ignore their heart strings being plucked while screaming, "Child, this ain't working any more!" (If their heart was a ghetto Black woman) And in both cases, they're all struggling with the idea of "What if" and "Maybe if I would have stuck it out a little longer..."

But that ideology rarely works out when the relationship just isn't working. But they will soon realize that as they walked away from their bad romance--they took a few steps closer towards happiness and that says more about them as a person that sticking it out would. If it's broke and can't be fixed--don't stick it in the corner and pretend everything is good; instead, let it go, put in on the side of the street and let the universe take it from there.

What struggles have you dealt with when breaking up? Does one party ever have it easier than the other? Share your thoughts and leave a comment.