Ten days ago, I broke up with my boyfriend of over three and a half years.  He started speaking to me again yesterday. Having not so much as looked at each other in over a week, we had a 90-second conversation about absolutely nothing.  Something about cleaning out the refrigerator.

I had forgotten what it was like. To have the words constantly clinging to the edge of your tongue, breaking free in one decisive moment. Finalizing.

Truthfully, I had always been on the receiving side. At seventeen, the boy I had first-kissed told me it “wasn’t working.”  I will never know what he meant by that. At eighteen, I envisioned my future with a boy who later told me he “didn’t want to be tied down.” There was much crying  and heart shattering and dramatic promise-ring-returning.  At twenty,  I fell head-over-heels for a college friend. He never picked up my muliple calls to him that summer, long distance, from London.   [He picked up for his ex.]  At twenty-one, a smart and lovable French major just. stopped. calling. We’re still friends, and I ended up with one of the greatest post-breakup drinking stories I’ll probably ever see. He was going through some things; I understand that now.

But this. God. This.

I had forgotten. No matter how sure I was, no matter how many times I had thought it over, deciding yes, this is the right choice, for the both of us — I had forgotten that moment. The second where your heart breaks open like a capsule, its insides spilling into a pool at the bottoms of your feet.

It had been a while.  But I remember now.  Head, stomach, and heart, duking it out in the battle of rendering me utterly and completely useless.  Head does well on the nightshift with its signature insomnia move, while  stomach hits its stride during the day with the consistent nausea. And Heart.  Oh, Heart. Heart doesn’t even need the other two. She’s got an agenda all her own.

The difference this time around, of course, is that Damon and I have been co-habitating for the past three years.  Our lives are deeply woven together, in a way you don’t recognize until you’re forced to think about untangling them.  This also means that, until we get things sorted,  we’re forced to face each other while going through one of the hardest aspects of the human experience.  And while we didn’t speak for days on end, depressive beacons of heartbreak are flooding the place.  I see his empty packs of cigarettes and he hears my melancholy mixtapes. Fast food containers are strewn around our apartment, symbolizing failed attempts to self-medicate with crab rangoons (his) and fried-anything (hers).

We avoid each other as if we’ve just moved in with someone we’ve never met. We don’t watch this television show together anymore. When I leave the house, I don’t say goodbye. The refrigerator needs cleaning. This sucks, doesn’t it? This sucks this sucks this sucks.

…I can’t end this entry without saying how lucky I am to have an incredibly supportive network of friends and family. Stubborn and independent, I am known to withdraw and isolate instead of holding out my hand when I need help.  What a gift, then, to have people in my life that just reach out, grab, and pull, whether I need it or not.

[I need it. Thank you.]