Lance Armstrong and Other Significant Heartbreaks (a lyrical essay) by Caroline Burrows

We’ve also included an audio version if you want to listen to Caroline reading her essay…

In 2012 my heart was broken twice. I wanted the crying, the confusion, and the heartbreak to stop. Desperately seeking solace, I did what a lot of people do, I went online. I didn’t like what I saw, so I tried more than one website. But they all showed me variations of the same thing. Apparently, I needed to take the length of time a relationship had lasted, and divide it by half. That’s how long it’d be before my heart would mend.

Well, it’s over a decade ago now. Am I over it? I can say that amongst all my possessions, I don’t have anything that reminds me of him: I no longer wear a band of yellow; I got rid of all the books with his name written in them; and I haven’t returned to Paris, that land of romance, to spend a long summer’s day on the Champs-Élysées. That’s where he accused me of not being able to believe in miracles. He’d been wrong about that. I had believed, until he’d made it impossible.

I should’ve known. They, whoever they are, say there’s no smoke without fire, and there’d been plenty of rumours about him cheating. But then again, have you ever watched a quiz show on TV, and shouted at the person on screen for not knowing the answer to an obvious question? It’s only obvious to those in the know. It wasn’t just me who was fooled by Lance Armstrong.

When I found out the truth, I did what a lot of people would do at a time like that. I burst into tears. There were so many emotions, I struggled to comprehend what I was feeling: anger, sadness, horror, disappointment, stupidity, betrayal. I couldn’t talk about it, even when everyone around me kept bringing it up. I walked out of rooms because of it.

I’d invested a huge chunk of my life: time, energy, money, even my own identity in believing in him: of overcoming the odds. I used to make sure the entire month of July was kept free to fully dedicate myself to the Tour de France. It sounds stupid now, to let something become so overwhelmingly self-defining. If I’d paid attention to any of the orthodox religions, I’d have known not to worship false idols.

Of course, I could’ve continued living the lie, to remain complicit, having the ends justifying the means. Plenty of people have gone for that option. I don’t blame them. I understand how unsettling break-ups can be.

I told you my heart had been broken twice in 2012. The other time was by the man who’d stood beside me on the Champs-Élysées, rolling his eyes and laughing at my insistence we got there hours before Lance and all the other cyclists whizzed by.

There’d been warning signs with him, too. When I’d tried on a band of gold set with a diamond, and he’d stood near the door of the jewellers, under the sign for the emergency exit. I should’ve known then, but that time I did lie to myself, for as long as I could. I didn’t want to believe the obvious answer to a question that didn’t need asking.

But that man didn’t cheat or lie. He just stopped loving me. I sometimes catch myself referring to him as my ex, like I’m desperately clinging on to the possession of a negative. I correct myself and call him an ex, he’s not mine, not for a long time. For all I know, he’s probably married with kids by now. I could find out, but I don’t. It’s easier to deal with that way, or maybe that’s just another type of lie.

Getting over someone occurs through a series of small improvements. In cycling, that’s called a process of marginal gains, those tiny tweaks that when added up benefit in someone being able to get themselves further ahead. So, that is something I’ve kept with me from all my Lance Armstrong Fangirl years. But that figure, the total length of a relationship divided by half was being kind. I don’t think I’ll ever truly get over those significant heartbreaks no matter what the arithmetic suggests, but maybe I’m not supposed to either. What I’m left with is knowing how deeply I was capable of caring about something and about someone, and that I can do that again if I choose to focus on love and not loss, and I don’t think there is anything marginal about that gain.

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NEWSFran Martin24 November 2022