Breakup Bike
There’s a theory my therapist once mentioned to me, the backward bicycle theory. People engineered this bicycle so that when you steer left, it goes right, and vice versa. When they took it for a test drive, it was impossible to learn. The brain understands the concept; it knows that to go left, you have to steer right. However, the body can’t go against what it has been trained to do for so long.
My experience with relationships has taught me that there is a big difference between clarity and closure. I confused the two when I was trying to get over my ex-boyfriend. I thought that if I understood everything that happened in our relationship, like his point of view or the motivations behind his actions, I would be able to finally move on. However, like the backward bicycle theory, just because my brain understood the “why”, logic was never enough to make me accept it.
After lying in your bed for four consecutive days, living on a diet of potato chips and lukewarm water, you start to think about what went wrong. What was it that drove him to cheat multiple times? So I called him and asked. His answers were vague; “I don’t know why”, and “you didn’t do anything”. Extremely unhelpful. So I went back to him a lot, desperate for answers. I was also desperate to prove something, that I could reverse the roles, and make him the one who hurt. I was trying to regain some of the power he stole from me. Unfortunately, it never worked out in my favor. He kept causing more pain and creating new situations where I needed clarity (and closure). I was stuck in the ex-boyfriend cycle from hell.
In July, my friend had a party. It felt like high school all over again – same people, same place, same drama. And his presence amplified the already present feelings of immaturity. From spending an hour catching up to fighting in the middle of the hallway, we both had too much invested from the start. My friends sat on the white wool couches and watched from the sidelines as I transformed into this unrecognizable, obsessive little girl. I was emotional and drunk and a total mess. An all too familiar situation, since I break down every time we run into each other. It’s embarrassing for me now, but at the time I didn’t care what other people thought. The problem with the search for clarity is that there is always more to know, and in my case, it became all-consuming.
Between zero and one, there is an infinite amount of numbers. 0.5, 0.05, 0.0000005. You can always go smaller, and dive deeper in. I felt as if I was trapped in this infinity when I spoke to him. I could nitpick a situation forever, and ask questions until I ran out of breath; “when was it?” turned into “give me a play by play”. There was an infinite amount of answers to be had, all completely unsatisfying. I thought my feelings were left unresolved because there was more I needed to know. What I actually needed was to come to terms with the knowledge I had pried out of him.
I’m in no way an expert when it comes to relationships. Being honest, I would be a hypocrite if I said I feel absolute closure. I don’t. But I’m not looking to anyone else to find it anymore. From what I understand about clarity versus closure, it comes down to what the other person is capable of giving you. Clarity does come from the other person. They can enlighten you about their experience, their feelings, and occasionally their needs moving forward. Understanding why can be healing, and give both sides comfort. In my case, however, the “why” could be summarized by a simple thing: his own selfishness. Despite my futile attempts to uncover some meaning, there was nothing more to it than that. He had given me all the answers he could. The rest of the healing was my responsibility. I think a lot of people, myself included, forget that just because another person has the ability to cause you pain, does not mean they hold the cure to relieving it. It seems like closure can only be found by looking inwards – some things are better left unsaid. It isn’t about the other person, it’s about coming to terms with yourself, and everything you’re feeling.
I’m sure whoever discovered the psychological phenomenon of the backward bicycle did not think it would be used in a 19-year-old’s article about her breakup. Then again, it is this 19-year-old’s opinion that breakups might be one of the most influential psychological phenomena in young lives. I have learned more about myself, through this whole messy process than I have in any of my high school psych classes. If you’ve ever fallen victim to the whirlwind that is confusing clarity with closure, at the very least, you’ve learned a neat bicycle trick.
Illustration: Valerie Letts
