It's Not Okay: Turning Heartbreak into Happily Never After (2 page)

But all he could say was . . . you guessed it. “It’s okay.”

Eight weeks of wasted anticipation and painstakingly boring conversations, along with resisting that extra glass of wine so I could fit into skin-tight cocktail dresses and brutalizing my feet in high heels night after night. Eight weeks of missing my family in the hopes of finding love, and it all came to an end in one maddening conversation under the blistering sun of St. Lucia. All I could do was walk away . . . irritated, pissed off, and over it all. Ironically, it was this combination of animosity and the liberation I felt at recognizing and dumping a textbook chauvinist pig that provided a clean break. My heartache was minimal and short-lived, and I left St. Lucia single and ready to put the entire journey behind me.

Little did I know that the ending of this relationship—if you can even call it that—would serve as the catalyst for my next twenty-five relationships and, consequently, breakups. That’s because, apparently, dumping the show’s lead was groundbreaking in the world of reality television, and honesty was refreshingly inspiring to viewers—so much so that I was asked to return for a second shot at love, only this time
I
would be the lone woman courted and fought over by a sea of hunky men. As irresistible as it sounded, I grappled with the thought of interrupting my life once again to partake in a second shitshow. I had been there, done that, and checked “dating on reality television” off my bucket list, but the hopeless romantic in me was still searching for love.

After debating for weeks, I reluctantly decided to throw my hands in the air, let Jesus take the wheel, and give love another shot. You’d have thought I’d learned my lesson the first go-round, but an unusual optimism told me this second time was going to be different. I don’t know what it was, but I just felt it. It was as if all the stars in my world had aligned, and I was about to meet my soul mate and live happily every after.

So three months after saying goodbye to Mr. It’s Okay, I was back in Los Angeles, standing in front of that same gaudy mansion, surrounded by cameras ready to capture my every move as I began “dating” twenty-five men. The next eight weeks were going to be the most intense, emotional, and fun of my life, surrounded by hot men and cameras. However, since polygamy is illegal (and gross), I couldn’t keep them all, and unfortunately each week I had to break up with one hot stud after another. (So unfair!)

Although each of the breakups came with a different story and different emotions, they seemed so much more amicable than my previous breakup with Number One. The earlier breakups were easier, considering I’d barely known the men long enough to be told their last names. But as the weeks went on, I found that the worst moments throughout the show weren’t the hours of exhaustion or the times I felt homesick or overcome with anxiety before a date, but rather when I had to say goodbye to yet another nice guy. The fact that I was standing five feet away from someone I knew I was moments away from dumping was awkward enough, but the guilt I felt afterward was torment. There was a control that came with being the one deciding who went home and when, a power that normally I would have loved to possess, but had quickly turned into a burden I couldn’t wait to shed. I found myself wondering,
Why me?
Who had given me the right to dump good, kindhearted men who had put their lives on hold, risked humiliation and heartbreak, and treated me with nothing but respect? Who had made me the judge in this case? Half of the men I dumped were probably too good for me anyway, and yet somehow, by breaking up with them, I felt like I was minimizing them. It got harder as, week after week, deeper relationships formed and I wondered, “Would they be brokenhearted? Was I about to ruin their lives?”

And now here I am, the one not all right. The one brokenhearted. The biggest and hardest breakup of them all is without question Number Twenty-Six. This is going to be one of those breakups that will define me for the rest of my life, haunt me wherever I go, a permanent skeleton in my closet. Not only is the entire world going to know about it, thanks to the making of this entire relationship being broadcast to millions, but this blunder will be the ultimate “I told you so” from every single viewer of the show. I’ll have gone from being a successful attorney to a reality television star to the laughingstock of the nation. I’ll be seen as just another woman who “couldn’t keep a man.” And if the devastation and embarrassment of that aren’t enough to set this breakup far apart from the first twenty-five, it will also brand me with a label I’ll have to wear forever. It won’t be a Prada or Dior label; no, this will be more like a cheap knockoff you get on the streets of Chinatown. In all my years and fashion faux pas (of which there are plenty), this is the worst label I have ever worn, and it’s called . . . ex-fiancée.

Because that’s the label you get when you fall in love, get engaged, and it doesn’t work out. You can’t cut it out, sell it on eBay or pretend it’s not yours. No, this one belongs to you forever. You now get the privilege of telling people—what do they call it these days?—oh yes, that you have been “previously engaged.” How delightful!

How did it go so wrong? Did I make a mistake that will shape the rest of my life by picking and getting engaged to Number Twenty-Six?

Of course I did! Was I blind to who he really was? Of course I was! I fell in love with a man who was everything I’d dreamed of—a family man who promised to protect and support me, who looked at me with the adoration in his eyes that every woman dreams of. A man who made me the happiest woman in the world. It was all so perfect . . . until it wasn’t. And despite knowing how toxic and unhealthy our relationship became in the end, I don’t know how and why it got to be that way. I just know that the odds of my ever getting over this breakup are about as slim as me waking up tomorrow as Beyoncé.

All right, so maybe life isn’t really over, but if you’re anything like me, your relationship certainly is. Why am I telling you all this? Because we’ve all been there—maybe not breaking up with someone on national television, but we’ve all known the kind of heartbreak that knocks you on your ass and leaves you feeling hopeless. Yes, at some point in our lives, we’ve all found ourselves going from the land of sunshine and roses to being smack dab in the heart of the storm. In fact, odds are if you’re reading this, you’re either a) going through a breakup, b) getting over a breakup, c) about to break up, or d) just want a good laugh at the disaster you’ve been lucky enough to avoid. (Note: if you fall into the latter category, I don’t blame you. I’d probably enjoy it a little too! But don’t laugh too hard, your time might be just around the corner.) Whatever the case, I’m here for you. Here to bare it all, one catastrophic moment at a time. No sugarcoating, no denying the brutal reality of heartbreak. Just my story along with a little advice on how to survive a breakup. It won’t be easy—survival never is. In fact, getting through heartbreak can be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do in your lifetime. I mean it. It’s worse than a death and harder than battling an illness. With a death comes finality, with an illness comes an opponent to beat. But when it comes to heartbreak, it’s just you fighting . . . your own pain.

So buckle up, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Get ready to go from hysterically crying all day, to suddenly becoming a raging lunatic who hates the world, to finding yourself in front of a fireplace literally burning away every memory of your ex. And—believe it or not—all the way to being able to look back, laugh a little, cry a bit, learn a lot and most importantly realize that happily ever after might really be happily
never
after. I’ll tell you how I went through it all, and spoiler alert—I
did
come back, and so will you!

But before you do, you’ll have to ride out the storm. It will pass, and when it does, you’ll emerge better than ever. But you have to survive it first. So head to the wine shop and grab a few bottles (don’t forget the corkscrew), stock up on tissues, get a Netflix account, and pretend you’ve just gotten an invitation to your very own pity party! It’s yours and you can cry if you want to. For now, there are no words comforting enough, no amount of positive-thinking bullshit wise enough, and certainly no type of booze strong enough to bring you solace. It’s time to lie in bed in your yoga pants, smelly white T-shirt, and cry in between sips of rosé as you think to yourself,
My life is officially over.

Lesson learned:
Welcome to the Pity Party! Check your pride at the door!

I
should be sleeping right now, but despite being emotionally and physically exhausted, I’m wired. I am like the depressed eternal flame longing to be put out ever so badly, but no matter how much rain or wind comes my way, I just keep flickering. I can’t stop thinking about how I find myself in such a predicament. It’s mindblowing that in a matter of just eighteen months I went from a young, promising lawyer to one of thirty crazy chicks dating one guy on TV to the one crazy chick dating twenty-five men on yet another show, to engaged, to where I find myself now . . . a single train wreck living in the guest bedroom at my friend Kelly’s house.

How the hell did this happen?

That’s a damn good question. I guess the answer can be summed up in two words: free drinks. Well, free drinks and assertive girlfriends.

Flash back to the summer of 2013—I was a twenty-three-year-old single gal living in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. I’d finished college, gone on to law school, passed the bar exam, and was working as an assistant district attorney prosecuting gang crimes. I was quite content with my pseudo normal life. When I wasn’t working, I was hanging out with my girlfriends or enjoying wine-fueled Sunday dinners at my parents’ house. Life was simple but full, minus one obvious thing: a man. With both my parents and sister happily married, I was the token fifth wheel of the family. Though this title afforded me my own room on family vacations, it came at the cost of my pride. Trust me, the only thing worse than a table for one at an all-inclusive Mexican resort is a table for five.

When it came to finding a boyfriend, I was ready, willing, and able, but found myself stuck in that peculiar zone somewhere between disdain and obsession. I guess you could say I was aloof when it came to dating. Sure, I wanted a man, but I wasn’t willing to fight tooth and nail to get one. I was young, my eggs were still fertile, thus I figured when the time was right I would find a man in one of the many traditional ways: work, the gym, a bar, or perhaps one of those strippergrams that show up at the door, courtesy of my married girlfriends. But up to this point, I hadn’t found the right guy—hell, I hadn’t even found one I wanted to go on a date with. No man seemed to make a free meal worth an hour of getting ready followed by hours of awkward, shallow conversation.

And when it came to casual hookups and one-night stands, though I had ample opportunities (which isn’t all that hard in Atlanta, especially if you find yourself in certain Buckhead dive bars around last call), the idea never appealed to me. I’m feisty and good at playing hard to get, but my bark has always been bigger than my bite. Truth be told, when it came to hooking up with random men, I didn’t have energy to (a) shave my legs, (b) deal with putting out, or (c) engage in the awkward morning after, which consists of either a walk of shame or my telling a guy he didn’t have to go home but he had to get the hell out of my place. Though
I
was happy being single, my girlfriends didn’t seem to share the same sentiment. They had one concern when it came to me, and it wasn’t my job or wardrobe—it was my love life.

Those most concerned with this search were Sarah, Leslie, and Caroline, three of my best friends from law school at Wake Forest. I met Sarah on Facebook, thanks to a mutual friend who knew I was looking for a roommate. We immediately hit it off, and decided to live together. Over the course of three years, she’d become the best roommate I ever had in my life, in part because she was more studious than I was, which kept me focused, but also because we shared the same taste in clothes and wine. Sarah was in a relationship with Phil, a baseball player at Wake Forest. I’d always liked Phil; he was tall, somewhat goofy, adored Sarah, and most important, was always willing to set me up with his hot single teammates. Soon after we graduated law school, Phil realized he had outkicked his coverage and proposed to Sarah. (Note: In girl terms, “outkicking coverage” is like finding a killer pair of Burberry pumps mismarked by a good $300, heading straight to the register, swiping the card, and speeding home, knowing you got away with one hell of a steal.)

Leslie was married to Wade, a classmate of ours. She was a tall, pretty blonde with a dry, sarcastic sense of humor. I envied her for the way curse words rolled so eloquently off her tongue. Nobody could say “fuck” like Leslie—it was an art that I tried to imitate but could never quite replicate.

Then there was Caroline, engaged to Lee, whom she had met in college. Caroline was a quintessential Southern belle from Nashville, Tennessee, and was the fashion captain of our group. She was smart, but had no qualms expressing her love for a good DVF wrap dress paired with Kate Spade wedges and anything with sequins, which made her the resident comedian as well.