Welcome To Heartbreak

Posted on 2025-02-27

In the past three days, I have been suddenly and unexpectedly broken up with by my boyfriend of almost two years and asked to move out of the apartment that we have shared for a year and a half. The past few days have been horrible and sad, but mostly filled with dread about the uncertainty of the future. It feels like a nightmare that I am going to wake up from; a few times I’ve asked myself if I lost my mind a la “Black Swan” and this reality isn’t real. This morning I stood in line at Starbucks and pulled back the pinky finger on my hand, bent it so far until it hurt. Okay, I thought, I must be awake and alive. This must actually be my life. I don’t know how it is that I have put on pants every day, brushed my teeth, written emails, written blogs posts, done my laundry, and eaten food. My heart feels so bad I can’t believe I’m not glued to my bedsheets. Maybe I’m just in so much disbelief that I am numb.

The highs of real life — the dopamine and the oxytocin rushing through my brain, yes, but the solidness I felt paired up with another half — were better than any drug.

Let me be clear: I’m not going to write about specifically what happened here. It is no one else’s businesses but the friends and family I choose to share it with. But frankly, I want to keep the option of getting back together and I don’t want to abuse his privacy now. He deserves privacy, too, because it wasn’t just my life together, it was ours. And honestly, I’m sick and tired of hashing over the little details 1,893 times, because I really think it’s important I look at the big picture for clarity.

My girl friends, my guy friends, my best friend’s mother, my mom and dad, my brother-in-law, my brother, and especially my sisters have been absolutely incredible. My best friend moved back to Germany, where she lives, the day I was broken up with and she has been so present, so supportive, in this time of distress, it’s hard to believe she is an entire ocean away from me. I never knew I was loved or cared about this much by so many people. It’s immensely humbling. If I don’t have him, and I still have all these people who care about me, I may just be OK.

Yet still, my own strength, wavering though it may be, is what I am standing on right now. A few people have told me they’re surprised I’m holding it together as well as I am and I think it’s because in this weird, f**ked way, other stuff prepared me for hard times. I know for a fact “this too shall pass” and I believe the heart of life is good. That is the one thing I ultimately have faith in, the one thing I feel spiritually connected to: the heart of life is good. I haven’t had the easiest life, despite surface appearances, and I’ve had to deal with a lot of character-building s**t. (Or stuff that they call “character-building,” at least. Ha ha.) The last almost two years of my life with Mr. Jessica have been the happiest I’ve ever had, no doubt about it. It felt great, though “great” feels like too simple a word — to know that life could feel AMAZING just about every single day of my life, that I could feel joy pulsing through me all the time. People really do feel that way, and I was one of them. Around sophomore year of college, I pretty much stopped smoking pot and getting blackout drunk because it never felt as “fun” or “happy” as I’d assumed it should be.

The highs of real life — the dopamine and the oxytocin rushing through my brain, yes, but the solidness I felt paired up with another half — were better than any drug.

I don’t know why it got yanked away so suddenly and, seemingly, cruelly. I am positively gobsmacked by this turn of events.

I’m trying to placate myself with every cliche in the book. If you love someone let them free and if they come back, they’re yours. Look at the big picture. Ours is not to know. Take the long view. Take care of yourself first. Or as my friend Lilit keeps telling me when I call her after midnight sobbing, “Do you.” (Yes, that’s a “Jersey Shore” quote, and yes, that’s the most bizarre show to take ersatz relationship advice from ever.)

I don’t understand what is happening in my life right now — the future, both immediately and in the future, are a big question mark to me. I feel like I have a complete absence of control. And all of us humans lack some control, ultimately, of course. But it doesn’t become obvious to some of us until times like this when you’re literally tossed around like a rag doll. I don’t know where I’m going to be living three months from now, one year from now. I don’t know whether I’m going to be single, or getting back together, or moving on. I don’t know if I am going to stay strangely numb and calm, or if at some point my head is going to explode like a landmine from all these hurt feelings and unanswered questions. Who the f**k knows right now.

I’m sad. I’m disappointed. I’m scared. I’m regretful. I miss someone who I love deeply and care for with all of my heart. I’m also angry at him. I feel ripped in half, literally.

There is a huge snowstorm right now. It’s really beautiful. I think I am going to sit at the window and stare at the snow.