Dear Broken-Hearted irl,

Before we get our hearts broken for the first time, we struggle to understand the pain those around us are experiencing. Before I experienced heartbreak, I remember rolling my eyes at the girls who were crying in the hallway at school. “It’s just a boy,” I thought. I never understood how a breakup could be that dramatic, until I saw my ex-boyfriend holding hands with another girl just a few days after he decided that I was not what he wanted anymore. I think that is how heartbreak works for all of us; it is a feeling so intense that it cannot be described until we experience it ourselves. It has been almost two years since the summer that I will forever stamp with the memory of a heartbreak, and even though I am happier and stronger now than I ever was when I was in that relationship, I still vividly and frequently remember the emotions that accompanied that summer. I feel it is because no matter how much time passes, the pain that accompanies a first heartbreak is pain that lingers forever, but the meaning of the pain changes as time passes.

Heartbreak is the sight of the “it’s over” text message through eyes blurred with tears. It is the words “he doesn’t love you anymore, I’m so sorry,” echoing in your mind like a song on a repeat. You become the girls you thought were over dramatic. In fact, you become worse than them. Heartbreak is screaming into a pillow on the night he ended it and walking around school like a zombie the following the day. It is running straight into him in the hallway and then collapsing in tears into a girl’s arms. That girl who selflessly wiped your tears will ultimately become your best friend who begs you to eat and is your saving grace throughout the entire, disastrous healing process. The days pass by in a blur because even though you are breathing, you swear your heart is not beating. The pounds melt off you like you are an ice cream cone on a summer day because the thought of even your favorite foods make you nauseous. Your mom constantly threatens to bring you to the hospital because if you “aren’t going to eat on your own, then you can be force fed through an IV instead.” Heartbreak is feeding your cat a grilled cheese sandwich because you cannot find the strength to eat it yourself, but you do not want your mom to worry anymore. It is your little sister laying next to you for hours at night until your quiet sobs transform into a less than peaceful sleep. It is collapsing on the bathroom screaming and crying, and constantly struggling to breathe. It is the vicious cycle of convincing yourself he will come back and you would be happy again, except he does not come back and when you realize he never will, your heart is ripped to shreds all over again. It’s rereading every one of your text messages to him and trying to decide where you went wrong and constantly blaming yourself. It is refusing to delete a single picture or text message because you never want to forget how happy you once were and are convinced you will never be that happy again. It is stalking his new girl’s social media and wondering why you could not have been more like her. It is seeing them together for the first time and trying but failing to hold back your tears, and instead erupting into uncontrollable sobs in public and wishing he would have treated you half as well as he treats her. Most of all, heartbreak is wholeheartedly believing that you will never feel better, and you will never breathe the same way again without him.

I will not be the person who tells you everything will get better in the end. Even though it seems impossible and you do actually heal and become stronger than you initially were, being told it gets better does not provide you any benefit when you are blindsided and hurting. I also will not be the person who tells you to move on and find someone new because I know that until you are one hundred percent ready, you will just see him in every guy you meet, and find yourself missing him even more than before. Instead, I will tell you it is okay to being hurting as badly as you are. It is okay to feel like the world came crashing down in front of you and all you can do is stare at it blankly, because in a sense, it did. I will also tell you that no way of coping with it is wrong, because everyone has their own personal way of dealing with the pain. Lastly, I will tell you that heartbreak is more than feeling a dagger in your chest every time you hear his name.

Heartbreak is also waking up one morning and smiling at the sun shining through your window. You will appreciate how happy you are, because you know how sad you can be. It is the appreciation you have for the girl who became your best friend because she was willing to pick up your broken pieces when everyone else left you to get cut on the glass. You will create your own happiness instead of waiting for someone else to bring it to you, and realize different, more mature qualities to look for in the men you date in the future. You will realize that you will always be in love with the memory of him, but your memory of him is no longer the person he is, and you are not in love with the person he is now. Heartbreak is realizing that you were protected from what you thought you wanted because what you wanted was no longer what you needed. You learn to appreciate the lessons he taught you and the growth he caused you because while you definitely do not need him anymore, you needed him then to get to where you are now. Meant to be is not always a synonym for forever; meant to be means someone was destined to cross your path to cause you to grow in a certain way. While sometimes meant to be means forever, no one is ever "not meant to be" because they were meant to affect you in some way. Heartbreak is learning why someone was meant to be in your life and then letting them go when they are no longer meant to be a part of it. It is finally deleting the pictures and the text messages and holding yourself together when you see the documentation of the memories disappear. You will learn to let go of what is no longer meant for you with grace because you definitely did not know how to do that when you had to let him go. Learning to let go will also teach you that letting go often causes less pain than holding on, but you cannot let go until you’re ready. (And you will know when you are ready.) Heartbreak is realizing what you deserve, and knowing that if someone will not fight for you, then they do not deserve you. That does not make either of you bad people either; it just makes you both incompatible for each other. Heartbreak is learning that hating someone only causes you pain. While they are out living their lives and you are hating them for it, your hatred does not matter to them, it only matters to you. It is learning to accept an apology you never got from a person who is not sorry, because moving on is a decision you make for your own happiness. It is learning to be happy for them and happy for yourself, even though your happiness is occurring separately from their happiness. Heartbreak is realizing that while being in love is absolutely beautiful, it is not the only aspect of life that is beautiful. Your goals are beautiful. Your dreams are beautiful. The moments that make your world spin that do not involve a man are beautiful as well. Love is absolutely amazing, but there is plenty of other amazing things in the world that are equally fulfilling. Heartbreak is realizing that you do not need a man to complete you because you are complete by yourself. Love is not about finding someone to complete you; it is about being complete but finding someone who compliments you in the best ways. Heartbreak is realizing forgiveness is not for the people you are forgiving; it is for you. It is growing as a person and appreciating the lessons learned and knowing that one day your heartbroken daughter will love to hear this dramatic story you now have to tell. Heartbreak is not just collapsing on the bathroom floor in tears. It is also the strength you find to realize that your happy ending did not include him, or anyone else. Instead, it included you picking up your broken pieces until you were laughing with your friends again, and he does not cross your mind because his leaving taught you that true happiness only can come from the inside.

Hang in there, and even though I promised I would not say it, it gets better.

Love,