Down Doobie Doo

A friend left me a voicemail this evening, telling me she’s breaking up with her boyfriend tonight. She wondered if I’d be able to meet her and some other girlfriends tomorrow. She said the breakup is long overdue. She said she’s happy for all the lovebirds out there, but she’s just not one of them. She said she doesn’t want to fake it, but she doesn’t want to be alone on Valentine’s, either.

Right away, without any summoning on my part, a cheerfully sentimental Neil Sedaka song from the 1950’s came into my head. (And how could he write such a peppy little number about such an awful little thing?)

Comma comma down doobie doo down down

Comma comma down doobie doo down down

Comma comma down doobie doo down down

Breaking up is hard to do

This I can’t believe, but my second thought went embarrassingly materialistically to her poor, unsuspecting boyfriend (whom, incidentally, I’ve never even met). But… what if he already bought her a Valentine’s present? Or a romantic little card? I pictured him in the pink and red aisle at HEB, poring over the American Greetings, selecting the perfect one. What if he springs it on her tonight before she has the chance to deliver her closing remarks?

Maybe I’ve watched too many Seinfeld re-runs on the treadmill at the gym lately, but that seems like exactly the kind of thing that happens to somebody who finally decides once and for all to end a relationship that’s just not working. She walks in the door saying, “We have to talk” and he responds with, “Great, no problem, I love talking, but first let me give you this bouquet of your favorite flowers that you didn’t even think I knew the name of much less could manage to get a whole dozen of when they are woefully out of season.” It. Never. Fails.

My third thought was, “Ooh, Valentine’s Eve, terrible timing.”

But then, when is a good time to break up with someone?

You prepare yourself for a breakup the same way you prepare to have surgery or deliver a dramatic soliloquy. You go over and over and over it in your head, surviving on very little sleep. You overeat one day and starve yourself the next. You call all your friends and ask them to be there for you. You visualize every scenario; you rehearse; you memorize your lines. At the appointed hour you waltz onto the stage/into the O.R./through the front door and brace yourself.

And still you’re not ready for it. It doesn’t matter how certain you are or how confident. You are exposing yourself to an audience of critics; you are removing something that probably doesn’t want to be extracted; you are facing someone who isn’t going to like your news. Whenever you finally screw up the courage to save yourself but disappoint another, you just have to jump.

So Valentine’s Eve it is. What is Valentine’s Day, anyway, except an invention by Hallmark and Zales to increase profits in the shortest month of the year? It’s a day. It might be the day after your breakup. It might be the first day of the rest of your life.