You know that scene in any disaster movie where one person knows something really, really bad is coming, and no one else believes him? In my life, that guy wasn't there. I was the guy in the rowboat facing the other way when the tsunami roared in from behind. That tweet up there was literally an hour after I realized my relationship was over.

Ahh, March of 2009. I remember it like it was 6 months ago. (counts on fingers) Oh, it was. March was the catalyst for everything that's followed it, most of it positive. The life I'm living now is 180 degrees from where I was then, and it seems very distant in a lot of ways when I look back. It was a rebirth of epic proportions. But at the time, it was not a happy month.

I've talked in earlier chapters about how this book is about me, and not necessarily about the other people in my life. I'm attempting to give them some anonimity here, which is not an easy thing to do in a autobiographical account of a year in my life, a particularly tumultuous year. I want to preface this chapter by saying that there is no animosity toward anyone I'm talking about, and in no way am I pointing fingers or placing any blame on anyone over the end of my relationship. My purpose here is to tell you what was going through my head and my actions during this time in my life, so I'm going to be purposly vague about names in some cases.

I woke up the morning of March 4th thinking it was a day like any other day. I jumped on Twitter, checked my email, drank coffee. Then I found out that my girlfriend was leaving. It's like when @jennlarsen promises to bake you a cake just for the hell of it, and then comes over with a plate full of crumbs, and frosting all over her mouth going "Cake? What cake?" Relationships end for lots of reasons, and in many different ways. One thing that's almost always the same is that there are signs that things are wrong, things that you might ignore or overlook for a long time until it's too late.

The end of my relationship came with very little warning. I knew something was "off," but I couldn't put my finger on it. Never in a million years did I think it was as cancerous as it was. I remember the second I realiized it was all crashing down, I could feel all of my insides drop into my stomach, like a fall on a rollercoaster, but slower. I was sitting in the exact spot I'm writing this sentence, on this computer, that morning at around 8am, trying to process the information. 4.5 years is a long time to be with someone, and the band-aid was pulled off in one yank. I remember it rained all day, and I'm pretty sure I didn't leave the house.

The end of a relationship is a lot like going through the death of someone you know. A therapist I went to about a week later, who sucked so bad I'd put his name in here if I could remember it once told me that, in order to move on from a relationship, you needed to picture the other person being buried at their funeral. This image actually made me cry in the therapist's office, but it also made me want to punch him in his stupid face. Instead I dumped him for a better one. But he had a point in that you go through the stages of grief when you get dumped. Really, it's the first 4 that happened in March, and the last three which have to do with moving on, happened at the tail end of April.

1. Shock and Denial I remember distinctly that I couldn't believe it was happening. I thought, "Wow, universe. This is a doozy of a dream, good job freaking me out, but I'm ready to wake up now. Let's go. Now. Seriously. This isn't cool anymore." I felt very detached from what was happening, and it was very dream-like for the first few hours. I couldn't process what was happening, I wanted to go back to sleep and pretend that the day hadn't started yet.
2. Pain and Guilt Oh. My. God it hurt. Not so much with the guilt, because there wasn't anything to feel guilty for, but there was regret. I wanted to build a time machine and go back so I could fix whatever the fuck it was that caused things to get where they were. I've been through a divorce, so I know what the pain of your heart breaking feels like. It was almost familiar, like a bully who stopped picking on you for awhile, and suddenly resurfaces. Yes, I'm talking about you, @migroddy. Miguel used to take my pants every day after school and throw them on the roof. The janitor always got them down, but then he watched me put them back on with a creepy smile. That janitor was @robmader. Actually, @robmader and @migroddy are amazing musicians I met on Twitter, and never bullied or violated me. Until I was an adult.
3. Anger and Bargaining There wasn't anger until much later, and it was directed at myself and not anyone else. But I was all over the bargaining. I spent a week trying to coerce her back, trying to fix whatever it was that caused the rift. The problem was, it wasn't something I could fix, because it had less to do with me and more to do with her just wanting to make a change in her life, and no longer being in love. This makes bargaining frustrating, because there's nothing to fix. You can't force someone to fall back in love with you, and you can't "fix" someone else. But I tried like a motherfucker.
4. Depression, Reflection, Lonliness Number 4 was the theme for the month of March, and they hit almost immediately. As with most things in life, I used sarcasm to mask my pain.

Back to March 4th. One of the problems I had fallen into in the 5 years previous was a lack of close friends I could confide in. I lots of people I could talk to, but only one that I could really confide in, @kimberlyprendez. My introversion had finally backfired on me. I remember I jumped on Twitter and posted a rather cryptic message about how the day was sucking. Almost immediately I got a Direct Message (shortened to DM on Twitter. It's a private message you can send to and from people you follow and visa versa.) from this guy I'd just started following, @jamiefishback. Jamie asked what was wrong, and I hesitated. Not because he was an actor, although that should have been reason enough, but because I was trying to keep Twitter mostly professional, and this guy was asking me to open up. But I was still in a state of shock, and I was desperate for someone to talk to, because the girlfriend was already on the phone with friends talking about how it was all out in the open. So I told him. And he was there with a virtual hug and encouraging words, which surprised me. People didn't do that shit on MySpace. Why was Twitter any different? Jamie offered to meet up for coffee and told me to keep him posted.

I didn't realize it at the time, but this moment was the turning point for Twitter and I. I realize that, upon reading that statement, @jamiefishback's head will grow to the size of a large watermelon and burst with excitement, spewing seeds and pulp everywhere, but he really was the catalyst for the crossroads I'd just approached. After I got off with Jamie, I was at a crossroads. I'd been tweeting with people every day for months, and I wanted to tweet. But my brain was consumed with the breakup, and that's all I wanted to talk about. But I was using Twitter to look for leads for film scoring, and I was pretty sure those people were not going to be interested in my drama.

The deciding factor ended up being friends, or the lack thereof. I didn't really have anyone I could talk to, no one to get drunk with and drone on and on about what went wrong with. But I had Twitter, the only social network I was actively participating in. So right here, at this desk, I made the decision to tweet about my personal life on Twitter. If people were offended, or didn't want to deal with someone else's drama and depression, then screw them, they could unfollow me. I needed a place to vent, to rant, to whine about the huge event that was going on in my life. And I did.