Allow yourself the luxury of being alone. Remember what both halves of the bed feel like instead of simply your own. Stretch yourself out parallel to the headboard; swim in the sheets until the waves rock you to sleep. Then wake up on your own, to your own body, at any time you want. Wake up to an entirely different world, so different it may seem terrifying, but new and exciting all the same. This is your world now. It doesn’t have to be shared with anyone else at this moment in time.
Yeah, go ahead and buy cartons of ramen noodles in packs of twenty-four and eat them sloppily in front of the television one right after the other at 5AM. Go ahead and cry in the shower so the neighbors don’t hear you, then progress to weeping, then full-on sobbing, then some sort of animalistic half-laughing, half-coughing that eventually turns to just laughter. Remember that feeling- feeling so ridiculously silly and lonely, thinking you’ll be alone again for the rest of your life, thinking no one else will ever want to cradle your face in their hands, much less kiss you in the backseat of a car or take all your clothes off at probably a very inappropriate time and location.
Cherish that feeling and those thoughts, because more likely than not, after the days of frozen dinners and pajamas, the days of dust collecting in every corner and feeling too tired to get out of bed, you’ll realize how lucky you are just to have felt that feeling at all. You’re adding to your collection of feelings and expanding upon it, putting more bottles in the wine cellar, so to speak. And some people never get to appreciate those feelings at all. Some people only have one bottle of wine in the cellar their entire lives, or maybe only three or four. They’ll go decades without lying next to someone else in bed, without curling up their fingers in someone else’s hand and waking up with their arm thrown over the warm curve of someone else’s hip. They’ll never know what being in love and loved in return feels like. And your breakup comes from a result of those very feelings, although this fact is obviously very sad. So consider yourself lucky, at least for a little while.
And of course it’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt very, very badly, no question about it. At some point, probably about halfway through the breakup, somewhere within that immense weight of grief, you’ll probably want to cut your heart out and hurl it down the garbage chute in a dramatic gesture of defiance. But to be quite honest, your heart is better saved for other things. Like learning how to love yourself without the presence of someone else. That’s very difficult, you know, but it’s a life skill everyone should learn.
Sometimes we’re too distracted by the waves of love emanating from someone else and sinking into our own skin to try pointing our own waves at no one other than ourselves. We deserve that. So step away from your head for a while and focus on loving yourself. Every flaw. Stand in front of the mirror and model your own cellulite and love handles. Flaunt it; be proud of it. This is who you are without someone else in your life or in your bed. This is who you are, and it may be a very long time before you’re able to be the exact person you are in this moment. In fact, you’ll never again be who you are by yourself, without another person to love and to love you in return.
You’re someone else entirely right now. You’re you.
But just because love leaves for a while doesn’t mean it won’t be back, begging on your front doorstep over the welcome mat. It will be back sooner or later. Love is always in need of a new place to stay. If it decides to go homeless, it’s only for a little while. So while you may want to drown yourself in pity or wallow in your own self-misery, save those feelings for better use. Because you’re going to be just fine. You’re going to be just fine regardless of whether you find another love or whether you remain on your own for several years.
You need to learn how to live outside the shadow of another person’s body. Unfortunately, a breakup is a pretty shitty way to teach someone how to do just that, but all things considered, once you see the sun again, you’ll be glad you stepped out from behind them for a while.
Now go find your own shadow and ask it out on a date.