The first trip around the sun

My notes from heartbreak.

Writer babe Annie Lord writes, in Notes from Heartbreak, that the first person you want to tell about a breakup is the person you've just broken up with. Because, despite everything changing in such a short amount of time, the universe you built with that person hasn't yet shattered. In the first days and weeks of a breakup, you're still wearing the other person – they're in the way you now laugh without sound, or their silly esoteric phrases you've adopted as your own, or in the enjoyment of things you never liked before, like Dr Pepper and grape-flavoured things.

Today marks a year since the end of those things.

In the first few days of the breakup, before anyone knew and therefore it hadn’t felt real, I would lie in the foetal position in my living room, ugly crying before my housemates got home from work. I’d drink water in the kitchen, looking absent-mindedly into the garden, thinking how empty and devoid of colour life felt. Safe to say, I was all up in my feels. My phone camera is full of crying selfies from that time. I’m not sure what I was trying to document it for, but maybe part of me felt like I needed a physical manifestation of the intangible hurt I’d felt?

When I was first studying for my journalism diploma, I was talking to a guy (not a journo, thankfully) for a few weeks until we decided we were too different and thus went our separate ways. The next day I told my journo pals, and the way everyone comforted me took me by surprise. They hugged me and consoled me, telling me all the usual things you tell people going through a breakup; there’s plenty more fish in the sea, one thing ends to make way for better things, etc., etc. But it honestly felt like overkill. Are breakups that deep, I thought? It didn’t even feel like a breakup, we’d only been seeing each other a few weeks. Truthfully, part of me thought people overreacted a bit when going through a breakup, no matter the length of time. Yeah, it’s sad you’re no longer with someone, but is it that deep, I thought, it’s not like they’ve died? And if you’ve broken up, it was clearly a sign they’re not the one? In hindsight, it was a harsh assessment of breakups – I just never took stock of all the pain involved.

Then May 11, 2023, happened, and it all made sense. I read Notes on Heartbreak when I was still in the relationship, and while I sympathised with Annie (her boyfriend of five years abruptly ended their relationship), I couldn’t quite relate. Now, sadly, I can. Because it wasn’t just the end of my first and only real relationship; it was the end of a friendship with my favourite person, it was the end of Friday takeaway and movie night, the end of ‘I’m craving X, shall we get it tomorrow?’, and last-minute plans because the sun came out, the loss of a travel buddy, someone to watch the films everyone else is too busy to watch with you, someone to text the mundaneness of your day to, or to call on work lunch breaks, the perpetual plus one to your invites, and the loss of someone whose sole goal is to make you happy. When you’re in a relationship, that person is your habit and hobby. So the end of it means the end of all those things.

The day we officially called it off, I took my siblings to Wingstop. The feelings still fresh in my throat, I couldn’t make an announcement and tell my family it was over – after all, in the weeks prior, we were talking about my wedding. But later that day, I told them separately, each one more shocked than the previous, thinking I was joking. The more they comforted me, the more adamant I was that I wouldn’t cry in front of them. I decided to take myself for a run, as though the endorphins would replace the pain I felt. I didn’t even finish my run before the tears swelled within me. I looked out to the Thames in front of me and put myself back together. I reminded myself that my God had guided me to this decision, and He doesn’t make mistakes; I couldn’t be sad over it, everything had happened as it should have. It was just time for the next part of my life to begin.

The past year has been good to me, alhamdulillah; I’ve traveled, I’ve worked new jobs, I’ve had new adventures, made new memories with old friends, I even developed an intense crush that ended as quickly as it began. I’m no longer the mopey mess I was, but sometimes I have moments where I indulge my sadness and loneliness, because I’m me and I’m alive.

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You guys, it’s so embarrassing and vulnerable to write about my feelings like this and sorry if I’ve made you cringe!! But this is my newsletter and it’s my feelings, so please read, share, support.

And because this is a labour of love I do for free, I’d love if you wanted to sling me a coffee (you can donate it virtually down here).