This Is The Side Of Breaking Up We Never Talk About

Breaking up is more than just the loss of a relationship.

It’s the mourning of a lost future.

It’s the wedding you’re never going to plan, the kids you’ll never get to name and the trips you’re not going to take. It’s finding a new plus one all over again.

It’s the emptiness that comes from preparing one meal instead of two. It’s the pit in your stomach so big that you couldn’t stand to eat even if you wanted to. It’s food losing all flavor and no tequila being strong enough.

It’s the silence of a blank phone screen. It’s no missed calls or unanswered text messages. It’s constantly checking, hoping, clicking for something, anything to indicate you’re being thought about. It’s deleting and blocking numbers and wishing you could remove them from your brain as well.

It’s daydreaming about unrealistic reunions. It’s driving home every day and wondering if this will be the time they are waiting outside of your door. It’s hearing car doors slam outside and wondering if they are here to throw rocks at your window and profess undying love. It’s every song having the ability to make you cry.

It’s the cold touch of an entire half of a bed that sits unused. It’s tossing and turning, stretching and touching, to cover every piece of material. It’s realizing that space that used to feel too small is suddenly able to consume you. It’s surrounding yourself with pillows just to feel touch.

It’s looking at strangers around you and trying to picture yourself with them. It’s trying to imagine your hands in theirs and calling them baby. The entire session of make-believe leaves you feeling nauseated and convinced you never want to do this again with anyone.

It’s envisioning the rest of your life by yourself.

It’s the loss of a family. It’s unfriending every relative because you can’t stand to see a single reminder of someone who is no longer yours. It’s wanting to scream to their Mother “I TRIED! They are your problem again now!” It’s not understanding how they can just go on with their lives when this is happening. How can life keep going on when this is happening?

It’s feeling so broken that you can’t even feel anything at all. It’s being at a complete loss for words to say but all you want to do is talk to them.

It’s being too tired to cry.

It’s suffering from selective memory loss, where all you’re able to remember are the magical moments. It’s emotionally cutting yourself with the dizzying memories of love and excitement and an unknown future. It’s the thought of them having that with anyone else but you.

It’s being so angry that you want to hate them but you hate yourself more. It’s beating yourself up for being so stupid as to fall in love when you know this is always how it ends.

It’s proving everyone right – including yourself. It’s hearing and knowing “You can do so much better.” It’s feeling like you’ve wasted so much time and given so much of yourself for nothing.

Breaking up is more than losing a love interest. Breaking up is losing a best friend, a partner. It’s learning how to once again be a half instead of a whole. It’s bare, empty spaces in your day and in your life. Breaking up is taking that love that you had for someone else and infusing it in the love you have for yourself.