The Breakup

It ended in a parking lot. He was crying. I was numb.\n\n"I don't love you anymore," he said.\n\nThree months earlier, he had told me I was the love of his life. Three months. That's how long it took for everything to fall apart.\n\nI didn't fight. I didn't beg. I just nodded, got out of the car, and walked into my apartment. I sat on the floor and stared at the wall for three hours.\n\nThe next weeks were a blur of crying and not eating and calling in sick to work. I lost weight. I lost sleep. I lost the ability to feel anything except pain.\n\nBut eventually, the pain faded. Not all at once — slowly, imperceptibly. One day I woke up and didn't cry. Then I went a full week without crying. Then a month.\n\nIt's been two years now. I'm okay. I've dated. I've laughed. I've fallen in love with life again.\n\nBut I still remember that parking lot. The way the streetlight made his face look strange. The way my world ended and started over in the same moment.\n\nHeartbreak is terrible. But it's survivable. And the person you become on the other side is stronger than the person you were before.