What No One Told Me About Post-Breakup Heartbreak

The idea of you moving on from me is killing me. I know it’s selfish, since that’s what I have been doing for the past few months.

I have been so focused on moving on from you that it didn’t cross my mind that you were doing the same thing. I thought I was doing a good job at it. But then, when I saw you trying to do the same, it was just too painful of an idea to bear. And that’s how I knew that I might not have been over you after all.

Talking to you after being apart for quite some time was hurtful in ways I didn’t expect. It reminded me of what we have lost. Talking to you like we are strangers after how we used to know every single detail about each other’s life was so hurtful. Being with you and realizing that we lost all these feelings we had for each other and everything we were to each other was too painful. Seeing you again was like a reminder of how things used to be. Seeing you again reminded me of all the things I wanted to say to you but couldn’t any longer. Looking at each other so differently than how we used to was just too strange and unfamiliar for me.

Seeing us like this never crossed my mind before. I never thought that we could end up being just like any two people who are barely acquaintances to each other, who just gesture to each other in the street out of politeness, who entertain small talk so they can fill in the silence and awkwardness of the moment.

Seeing you again made it so clear to me that we have become the past, that what we had between us became memories, and I guess I wasn’t ready to face that reality yet. But now it’s so clear, and it’s too hard to turn a blind eye to it or deny it.

I thought that deciding to let each other go would be the hardest part, that nothing could top that, but then I saw you again. Everyone told me about the pain of breakups, but no one told me about the post-breakup pain.

No one told me that you might be done grieving losing someone in your life but not what you lost between you two. No one told me that you might be done missing someone but not done missing what you two had. No one told me that you might think that you are over someone yet keep longing for how things used to be with that person. No one told me that you might think you’re done with a relationship but it doesn’t quite hit you till you see it for yourself.