Almost three years ago, I was dumped... on my birthday.

Thank god.

You know how they say you'll have three loves in your life?

The fairy tale love, our hard love, and the one we didn't see coming? He was all three wrapped into one person.

He had the humor you only see on comedy central, the kind that comes out of nowhere and makes you laugh until your sides hurt. He had a laugh that I swore made the room a little brighter. He was smart, both school smart and street smart, and always knew the answer to any question, and if he didn't, he was determined to find it. He had an amazing taste in music, knowing the lyrics to any and every song in any and every genre.

He was adventurous, not the kind that's like "let's go on an adventure" and take you to the gas station for a slurpee at midnight (although he did that too,) but the kind that would pack up the car and live in a tent with me for a weekend, would get lost through the tree's in a music festival. He loved to travel, craved to see the world, and loved to connect with everything on a level I didn't know existed. He took me to my first parties, helped me make the best of friends, was always there to hold my hair when I had to much to drink, always knew what it took to host a good party, and never backed down from a challenge. He traveled on his school breaks to help the needy, so he even had that in his heart. It was with him that I discovered who I was.

He was the fairytale I read in books.

He hit you like a freight train, and nobody could ever get enough. He had a way to charm everyone he met into liking him... which turned out to be the poison that ended us.

In the same way that I fell for him, so did she. His charm, the way he carried himself, his good character, his humor, his musical interest. I found myself through him, but he had to find himself without me. So on my 20th birthday, while the snow softly fell on his windshield, he broke up with me in a parking lot.

My heart stopped. And I never really know when it started beating again, because I stopped feeling anything for a long time after that day. I think I screamed at him, I think I begged him to stay, I know I cried so hard I couldn't cry anymore. I threw up, my body shook, I hurled insults, and then I felt it.

I felt my heart break inside my chest for the first time. I felt the actual heart strings rip, I felt pieces fall, I felt the world fall around me like the snow fell around the car. I wrote his name into my story, and he ripped the pencil from my hands, just to erase his name from every page that came next. I didn't know how to function without him in my life, how to go to school, how to see our shared friends, how to go to work, how to even get out of bed.

So I didn't. I didn't get out of bed, I didn't go on, I didn't see our friends, I didn't go to school, I didn't go to work. I mourned. I let my heart break over and over again. And the tears running from my bed was like Niagara Falls: a lot, constantly. Eventually, I discovered that the bottom of a bottle didn't ease the pain, and the only thing that did was letting him back in. But guess what happened that time? He showed up at my dorm room, gave me a cactus, and broke my heart again. I remembered sitting on the bathroom floor, being so upset I couldn't cry. My body just shook, I was in complete shock. And I sat there until I saw the bottom of another bottle and dreamed of nothing.

Every day on my birthday, I think I'll still shed a tear. Not because of what I lost, but because I will always remember the pain I felt that day, how every many years later.

The first time I really felt what heart break felt like.

Now I'm not telling you this story to make you feel bad for me, or hate him. Because this was almost three years ago now, and we're both doing great. We've both found what we were really looking for, and I only wish him the best. I'm telling you this story because you're going to experience that heartbreak too.

One day, somebody is going to make you go numb. Your world is going to crash down around you and your body is going to shake. Your going to feel that ache in your heart as you watch them erase their name from every one of your pages. You're going to feel the pain every day when you wake up, you're going to search for numbness in all the wrong ways, you're not going to know what it feels like to smile. You're going to feel nothing but a broken heart for only God know's how long.

And I want you to know that it get's better. Slowly, you'll fall asleep without crying, you'll be able to stand in the shower without sobbing, you'll be able to listen to the radio again. You'll wonder what that sound is, and realize that you'll laughing. You'll lose the bags under your eyes as the tears stop flowing, an you'll recognize the face in the mirror again.

It will be a long road, but you will make it through. Your heart might be broken, but you are not. Your life might be in shambles, but your future is not. Your world might be shattered, but you are still breathing. Learn to love yourself, to create your own happiness, to appreciate the world you create for yourself.

I thank God every day that I've had my heart broken, because I appreciate all the good times in my life more now. I appreciate every moment I smile, every time somebody makes me laugh, every time somebody sings with me in the car, or makes me feel like I'm influential in their life. I've learned all the worth I really have in this world, and how truly blessed I am to have the people in my life that I have.

He wasn't the one for me. So I cried my last tear, promised I would never cry about it again, sucked it up, and moved on.

I was dumped on my birthday, and it only got better from there.