By Cassie Sheridan
I’m going to steal a line from Caitlin Moran’s book “How to Be a Woman.” There’s a part where she talks about when you know a relationship is real and right: “You can always tell when someone is with the wrong person because they have a lot to say about the fact that nothing’s happening or everything’s wrong.”
In opposition to this is when the relationship is right: “They just disappear for six months, then resurface, eyes shiny and usually about six pounds heavier.”
Amen.
I think we’ve all had an experience (perhaps you are living it right now) that involved micro analyzing every event, every word said, every action taken.
It’s exhausting to be in a relationship that isn’t working. It’s exhausting to listen to a relationship that isn’t working.
But, it’s also terrifying to admit when it isn’t. To say it’s wrong. To walk away.
I have been in emotionally starving relationships that I clung to like they were giving me oxygen even when all they were doing was sinking me slowly.
Similarly to David Foster Wallace, I know that everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it. I think a lot of us are this way, whether we recognize it or not.
But I think a way to defeat this is to consider how often you are talking about it and analyzing how many hours of your day are you spending turning your relationships over like something to be studied?
When you’ve been part of a relationship that was this brand of exhausting, it’s like you’re in the middle of an emotional marathon with no rules, without running shoes and maybe wearing a backpack of bricks.
When you’re part of something that is working, it’s like you’re riding a scooter through said marathon. You have to work a little, but much less. You can dodge potholes.
My metaphors may suck, but all this is an extended way of saying it feels different. It is different.
I’ve thought a lot about how you know when it’s real. A simple Google search shows that I’m not the only one that has thought a great deal about this. That how to know when it’s real is one of the most asked questions in the rhetoric of love.
A lot of the stuff that is out there is the worst.
They are “14 ways to know it’s real” and “Checklist for the real thing” as if our experiences and feelings are something to be organized or checked off. And when you’ve felt these things, or more than half, or whatever arbitrary number, you can be assured that what you are living is the real thing.
I think an excellent way to know if your relationship is real or not is whether you are conducting Google searches to find out in the first place.
This question doesn’t have an easy answer that is going to be found on thought catalog.
I think you know. And I think the more desperately you cling, the more you know how wrong it all is.
Here’s a checklist:
I think you know it’s real when one day it’s eight months later, and it feels like it’s been an hour.
I think it’s real when they are the first person you want to tell your news to, good or bad.
I think it’s real when you can say it out loud. When it’s not a secret or shameful and not something you apologize for or make excuses about.
I think it’s real when they have the power to hurt you the most and they do or they don’t, but the power is still there.
This isn’t definitive and it’s not something to check off number by number, but it’s a few things I’ve learned from running with bricks and riding the scooter.
I hope we can all find the kind of relationships that we emerge from, eyes shiny and six pounds heavier.
And I hope we can all have the power and confidence and self-assurance to retract our claws and walk away when we know it’s wrong.
