A Note From Liz

The following story is 98% true and contains mature themes—namely, heartbreak, humiliation, and one anatomically questionable purchase.

A month after I met Liz, she moved into my thrifty, third-floor apartment.

Not long after, while I was in the next room, she texted: “I Love You <3”

It wasn’t the most romantic moment—I was on the toilet after a night of Chinese food and draft beer.

But how fitting. That’s exactly how you could describe our ensuing two-year relationship: down the toilet.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that we’d break up like hormonal eighth-grade students—Liz barfing her feelings in blue ink on paper ripped from a coiled notebook, and me spiraling into a hysterical binge.

Naturally, this didn’t go down somewhere neutral. Not even in the same time zone as Domestic Hellscape #303.

Nope. Liz passed me the breakup note while we were on vacation, 670 kilometers from the apartment—deep in the bush, tragically ending my access to the bush.

We were alone on the rickety wooden patio of her parents’ lakeside cabin, wrapped in forest and frayed nerves. I tried to ignore the tension, focusing instead on sipping my favorite beer—Guinness. Liz despised Guinness, but I’d never met a woman who liked the stuff. That stout glass foreshadowed the next several hours: dark, bitter, and inevitably empty.

I read the note again:

The last 3 months or so I’ve really felt a distance between us. Babe lets face it, we have very little in common, we don’t agree on music, movies, lifestyle choices.

As far as I was concerned, that’s her fault.

Why would you listen to Incubus and watch Garden State when there’s Led Zeppelin and Fight Club? Plus, I’ve never been one for macramé and DIY dreadlocks—or keeping a 68-litre tote full of dirt and worms in the kitchen.

Thinking back to the beginning, we had little to connect over. I was locked into a broadcasting career and happily steeped in drinking culture. She was six years younger, an innocent first-year college student who had just moved to the city.

We met at a student association Oktoberfest party—I slurred German songs, she laughed at the spectacle.

The free-spirited, outdoor adventurer somehow found me entertaining. And, for reasons unclear, she wanted more. As for me, I didn’t want to be lonely anymore.

Liz abandoned her $2,000 per-semester dorm room and moved in. She would become the equivalent of a slow carbon monoxide leak: I couldn’t see it, couldn’t smell it, but I was gradually being suffocated.

Liz’s lack of enthusiasm for alcohol kept her on the sidelines during nights out with my friends. Meanwhile, her absolute disgust for things like the online game Don’t Shit Your Pants left me guarded—unable to fully be myself, which, unfortunately, includes a deep appreciation for pixelated bathroom emergencies.

The note continued:

You’re almost at the age where you want to settle down and start a life. I’m no where near that point in my life … I’m going to live at camp for the next month … I’d appreciate it if I could keep my stuff in the apartment.

It wasn’t just my confidence and self-esteem destroyed on the patio—my short-term memory went with them. A mass ingestion of beer and cannabis had completely overloaded my system.

The only thing I vaguely remember is running into Liz under the orange tinge of a streetlight.

“I was going to marry you,” I snarled between uncontrollable sobs—an untrue statement that didn’t inflict the hurt I’d intended.

“I’m sorry,” Liz replied. “I still love you, just not in a way that can make both of us happy.”

I woke up inside an uninsulated bunkhouse barely bigger than a closet. My cheeks were crusty with dried tears, and my mouth tasted like a bottle depot floor.

The combination of a hangover, mild hypothermia, and fresh rejection put me in an adventurous mood. I’d never drunk alcohol at 7 a.m., but now that I was single, it seemed like the right time to try something new.

I was three sheets to the wind when we packed up and left the cabin at noon. The breakfast beers made me feisty, bracing for a seven-hour drive beside the woman who just emasculated me. Before we even hit the highway, I was scrolling through my phone's contact list, repeating the same conversation.

“Guess what, Liz broke up with me.”

The reactions were delightful. My family and friends didn’t hide how they felt about the relationship.

“I’m beside her right now,” I’d add. “We’re heading home early cause she didn’t want to stay the weekend.”

For an extra pinch of spite, I’d throw in, “All those things you said about her, you were right.”

~

For four weeks, I stared at a mountain of Liz’s belongings shoved into the corner of my living room—garbage bags, boxes, and small appliances.

Some days, I ignored it.

Some days, I wanted to pour gasoline on the pile and torch it.

She eventually returned to pick up her stuff. Unharmed.

“You can still text me if you need anything,” Liz said.

“Yeah, maybe,” I replied, holding the apartment door open. “Guess I’ll see you around.”

Our eyes met in that awkward should-we-or-shouldn’t-we moment—a goodbye hug hanging in the air. Nothing was said.

Liz slung the last garbage bag over her shoulder, and as her brown dreadlocks bounced away, I muttered under my breath, “Goodbye, Medusa.”

~

I had no internet access at home because Liz took the laptop.

Instead of dipping into my savings to buy a new computer, I did what any lonely, disconnected guy would do:

I parked three blocks away from the local adult entertainment boutique, my back pressed to the side of the building. I peeked at the traffic on the main drag, waiting until I could run inside unnoticed.

Natural sunlight struggled to shine through the frosted windows, and the air was rich with latex and shame. I hurried by a rainbow of phallic objects, silicone beads, and poorly photoshopped DVD covers.

It felt taboo, like eight-year-old me strolling through a liquor store with my dad, wondering who in their right mind would willingly put their mouth on something called Beefeater.

I snatched an economically priced female genitalia replica and rushed to the front counter, the feeling of a million invisible eyes following me.

“The girlfriend’s leaving for a month,” I blurted. The clerk didn’t ask, but I needed him to know.

“Yep, of course,” he nodded, clearly humoring me.

“University trip to Europe,” I said—then doubled down with a return date and flight number.

~

Let’s be honest—you can only be intimate with a glorified rubber chicken for so long before you start questioning your life choices.

I had plenty of time to ponder existence, sprawled out on the sofa bed nursing lonesome hangovers. The kitchen held more dirty dishes than food. And a mysterious fishy smell in the living room came and went like an angry ghost.

My attempt at online dating through the work computer yielded nothing but a preoccupied beer-league sports star who couldn’t commit to a date.

I also managed to pick up a mild stalker, whose heart I ripped out on a nightclub dance floor.

“We’ve had two dates, and I just don’t feel any romantic connection,” I confessed.

“WHAT DID I DO WRONG?” she yelled, pounding her chest in a sea of seemingly emotionally stable adults having fun.

I watched her tears hit the ground, then moonwalked out of the drama, thinking that was the end.

So, imagine my surprise when, months later, we happened to bump into each other at the Las Vegas airport.

“Did you follow me here?” I asked.

She said nothing, but the shrug of her shoulders and the shit-eating grin told me everything I needed to know.

~

Around Valentine’s Day, I was questioning whether genuine love still existed—and that’s when Cupid’s arrow struck in the form of a text message.

My buddy Ryan and his wife Lacey had signed up for the Moonlight Run, a late winter fun run through the river valley. Hoping to play matchmaker, they convinced me to join and meet Lacey’s single friend.

A month later, I waded through a crowd of toques and thermal tights, ready to test my physical stamina and my severely atrophied relationship muscle.

It had been 244 days since the breakup with Liz.

I found Ryan and Lacey stretching near the starting line and did my best to not look like an ass in front of the cute brunette standing with them.

“You must be the lovely and talented Cynthia,” I said, shaking her hand.

She laughed, and after some light chatter, we went our separate ways to run the race. Afterwards, the group consensus was to go for drinks. Everyone was packed into a pub booth, and the waitress came to take our order.

“I’ll have a Guinness, please,” Cynthia said.

My head snapped up from the menu, and I locked eyes with her.

That was the moment I knew I would marry her.

And I did.

Thirteen years and three kids later, I’ll occasionally think to myself … thank goodness I got a note from Liz.