Breakups

Heartbreak: 

Getting your heart broken is one of the most visceral experiences you’ll have in your life. There’s actually nothing like it. The pit in your stomach that seems never-ending, the agony you feel deleting old pictures from your camera roll, the fear of Mom and Dad bringing your ex up, the inexplicable sadness you feel while being intimate with other people….it’s on par with a loved one dying, except rather than celebrating the memories you had with someone whose no longer in your life, you try your best to erase them with no success. Before experiencing it myself, I had no perception of the pain so many music artists and movie directors had been trying to share with me my entire life. I had really thought that Coldplay was just a whiny little band and that Taylor Swift was just a decently good looking woman who had cultivated an audience of fans more passionate than jihadists. I had no idea, and then it hit me. It hit me like Sean Taylor hit that punter in the Pro Bowl. It hit me so hard I had no idea if I’d ever be the same.  

I understand the suffering anyone going through a breakup is experiencing. The mistrust, the self-hatred, the shame, the loneliness that creeps up into you at night, I get it, it fucking sucks harder than that one time you got a little curious with a vacuum cleaner when you were twelve. When I was in high school, my sister had a serious surgery that put her in a wheelchair for months. After that time, she needed to learn to walk all over again, and that is what breakups remind me of most: learning to do things without the person you spent a period of your short life treasuring the company of….of course they’re excruciating! Oftentimes when they happen, you’re still in love with someone who is alive, and you just have to accept that they will live the rest of their life without you. It’s hopeless, painful, confusing, and it leaves you feeling disturbingly and totally empty on the inside, like looking back on your childhood home without any furniture in it one last time when your parents sell it. 

Breakups make or break people. They can either be the best thing to happen to you that you’d never want to do again, or the worst thing to happen to you that you’d also never want to do again. Picking up the pieces isn’t easy, but it must be done. I’ve seen a few people in my life never recover from being dumped, and they really come off as relics of the past. People who have never left the year 2019, still posting Snapchat stories doing the same things they were doing five years ago and asking friends questions about an ex who hasn’t thought about them in years. 

Two weeks. You get two weeks to be the movie caricature of a guy who's lost everything after a breakup. Drink too much, don’t shave, cry yourself to sleep every night, and eat like shit. Don’t try to move on, and don’t be reckless. Try to not call her when you’re drunk, but let’s be honest, you probably will. Delete all the pictures of her off your phone and social media, bite a lemon while telling everyone who matters to you the news, and get feeling sorry for yourself out of your system. I know that you’re anxious, because in your mind, dating apps might as well be Doordash for dick, but push those thoughts away for now and indulge in life’s libations. Eat like a non-binary person with money. 

After that, every day should be about getting out of bed and doing the right things. Hold yourself accountable to doing your job, going to the gym, and drinking enough water like they are moral obligations. Build the discipline to not stalk your ex on social media. Listen to comedy podcasts, read books, make your bed, and eat something green with every dinner. This regiment will get you in the right direction, but it won’t pay off immediately, far from it, actually. Getting over a breakup is like climbing up a set of stairs with the bottom being holy shit, my life is over I can’t live like this and the top being hahahaha, I can’t believe I dated them. Each stair represents forward progress like going to the gym for a couple days in a row, followed by a plateau. As you begin to climb up the stairs, the milestones of forward progress become more and more impressive: two weeks without skipping the gym, a raise, doing something philanthropic to help others, a new apartment with a better view, getting a girl’s number at a bar, ect. Eventually, when you get to the top of the staircase, you’re not only over your ex, you’ve adopted a much better lifestyle for yourself and you’re a more confident person. I’ve seen friends channel breakup energy into achieving remarkable things.

Going through heartbreak has made a lot of people skinny and a lot of people strong, along with fueling some of the best music in world history and making countless artists millions of dollars in the process. Behind every successful entrepreneur, there is a long list of people who told them they weren’t good enough, including ex romantic partners. Same goes for athletes, real estate moguls, scientists, and many more professionals we commonly revere.  There are two types of people out there: people who do nothing to improve their life and blame the world around them for the position they are in, and people who get up after life hits them like the winner of a Worldstar fight from 2014. I don’t want to sound like one of those fucking motivational assholes here, but hone your craft, and good things will come. Keep your head down, eat some shit, and one day you will find yourself on a boat with someone who makes you happier than you’ve ever been, completely removed from the pain you’re wallowing in today.