When You Screw Up at the Piano Recital, You Don’t Take a Break from the Keys #
“It’s funny if you think about it, that whole ‘you just got out of a relationship, you need to be single for a while’ thing,” Ro says.
We’re at our usual place. I’ve got a glass of red wine. She’s drinking one of the draft beers. I didn’t catch what it was when the waitress said it, masked by a thick Eastern European accent. But the beer looks as dark as Ro’s laugh, and I bet it’s good.
“Isn’t it?” I say.
“People don’t account for bad luck in dating,” she says. “They’re always looking to see what kind of lesson they need to learn because they assume they’re in control.”
“But the truth is that sometimes things just don’t work out. And maybe what we should be learning from all of this is resilience,” I agree.
She nods. “Not sitting at home, taking a break. Getting back out there if you’re feeling up to it seems fine.”
“Yes,” I say. “If you screw up at your big piano recital, you don’t say ‘That’s it, I need to take a break from playing piano. I guess I’ll sit around for 6 months replaying what went wrong.’ No, you go home and practice. And prepare for the next recital.”
Dinner arrives. We talk about how, sure, maybe you shouldn’t be in a hurry to get into something serious. Or scramble too desperately for someone to become a Big Thing while you’re still reeling from your breakup.
But you can learn a lot from getting back out there and seeing other people. Figuring out what kind of person you are around someone new. People are microcultures, after all. And sometimes they act as mirrors that reveal different facets of ourselves. Reflections that we might never have encountered sitting alone in our room staring at the wall. Reading angry clickbait designed to monetize the woes of the newly heartbroken.
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My book is out!