two months ago i had my heart broken. someone i loved — the first person i ever let my guards down for — cheated on me, lied to me, and left me for someone else. at the time i thought i wouldn’t survive my heartbreak. it felt like i was in an endless black tunnel, and no matter how far i walked i’d never find the light everyone kept telling me about. i couldn’t fathom a future in which i didn’t dream about him every night and wake up crying. i couldn’t envision a world in which i was nothing more than a stranger to him. i was so convinced i would love him for the rest of my life, and no one else would ever measure up.
the days blur together, but i’ll never forget the intense, unrelenting pain. i remember spending entire days curled up in bed, shaking like a leaf as i tried, unsuccessfully, to fight off devastating thoughts of him with his new girlfriend. i remember emptying entire boxes of tissues in the hours between waking up and dragging myself to work. i remember walking around all day like a zombie, feeling as though i were on a separate plane from the rest of the world, and then coming home, sinking to the floor, and screaming until my throat was raw. i remember going days without eating. i remember drinking so much in an attempt to forget about him that i spent multiple nights on my bathroom floor puking into the toilet. i remember staring at the ground under my balcony, wondering if he would care if i jumped.
and now, two months later, all of that is gone. vanished. like it never existed. i don’t know how it happened; i can’t say whether it was a gradual transformation or a sudden shift in perspective. all i know is i woke up one day and i was happy. i lay in bed, waiting for the familiar wave of nauseating agony to roll over me, and i felt nothing. i prodded the thought of him into my head, but it didn’t make my stomach turn. i was blissfully indifferent.
at first i thought that morning was a fluke, but i’ve been consistently happy since then. i don’t think about him anymore, except when i come across something that reminds me of him, and even then my memories of him are vague and emotionless. i know now that i no longer love him, because i can finally see what everyone else saw months before he left me: that he wasn’t a good person. that he didn’t care about me. and that i’m a better, happier, stronger individual without him bringing me down.
as ridiculous as this sounds, i think the turning point was the whirlwind 24-hour las vegas trip i went on last weekend. for the first time since the breakup i let myself have more fun without him than i ever had with him. i drank, i flirted, i gambled. i danced my heart out until 5 am. i had a one night stand with a ridiculously good looking stranger. i did so many absurd things that i was always too shy and insecure to do, and i had fun doing them. i realised that i’m capable of so much more than i give myself credit for, and that being with him and constantly comparing myself to the people he put above me was preventing me from living my life to the fullest.
it’s a strange feeling, being happy again after what felt like an eternity of constant misery. it’s like riding a bike — you start off wobbly as you try to remember how to balance yourself properly, but a part of you recognises that this is something that will eventually come naturally to you again. that even though it feels foreign right now, it’s an inherent skill that you just have to coax back out. every once in a while i catch myself trying to induce tears by thinking about everything we lost, but they rarely come anymore. my heart is tired of longing for someone who doesn’t deserve my attention. it’s fighting back; it’s protecting the happiness blooming inside me.
i look back, and the person who skipped lunch everyday so she could cry in the bathroom at work is a stranger to me. i sympathise with her — pity her, even — but i no longer relate to her. we are not the same person. she was the shell of someone who defined herself by a guy who took her for granted. i am my own person. i have my own life, i have my own friends, i have my own future. and i can make myself happier than he ever made me.
