My Experience Vlogging A Breakup

A few things happened in the past weeks. I and my boyfriend of ten and a half months broke up. I had a full hard week of coming to terms with it, which hurt more than expected as the decision was mutual. At the end of the week, while I was heading to his side of town to have him help me service my car, I drove through heavy rain and ended up hydroplaning, spinning across three lanes of highway, and crashing into a wall in my little sedan. He was the first person I called. The man who pulled over to help had to remind me to call 911 as well.

Though he didn't understand how bad the crash was until he arrived to pick me up, he immediately released a wave of affection on me that showed me that we were still on. Hugs and rubs and a hasty kiss that led to a conversation about questioning why we even broke up. And a day of him comforting me with his presence, which both my nerves and my aching heart needed.

While still recovering from the crash, I perused the clips on my phone I'd made that week. Every time I got extra sad or pensive about the breakup, I just turned on my phone camera and ranted. I usually journal, but with covid even seeing my own face on a screen feels like human contact, and it feels better than staring at the white wall that is the notebook page.

I made about twenty of these short videos in six days, which incuded evidence of my most raw emotions. It laid bare the range of reactions that I ran through in the course of each day. Resentment, forgiveness, envy, anger, spite, longing. An incredibly tumultuous time given what I believe my true nature to be: reasonable control over my emotions.

It is odd to have the first week of a breakup end and then, in the face of another shot at the relationship, review the response you had. You watch yourself make no sense at all. You pity yourself as you see tears fall that you no longer presently relate to.

Should the fact that I went back to him seem out of place given what I stated in some clips? Instead of a close girlfriend reminding you that "he's no good for you", you've got yourself from a week ago. I've always thought that the greatest skill all humans have is that of convincing themselves that a thing is true. Should I now do so against my own testimony?

It must be something that any producer of candid media deals with, the possibility that you could at any point fully contradict yourself. The human experience is so fickle sometimes that if it were capured in a Truman Show fashion, it would have no narrative structure at all. One might say that a rescue from a car crash in the pouring rain a week after a heart-wrenching breakup is the pinnacle of good romance writing, but in real life it feels like I'm stubmbling all over myself and my weak resolve.

All this to say that I set out to video my own growth trajectory following a loss, and once winning back the same thing I find myself questioning the merit of the time put in. It will serve a purpose; I didn't cry inauthentic tears. But I must now find a new purpose for those videos, likely to inform my relationship going forward.