I stood in front of the bathroom mirror with wet eyes. My hand shook and rattled the sink as I turned it on. I grabbed my toothbrush and began to clean my teeth, only to end up with toothpaste spread across the outskirts of my mouth from trembling fingers. I knew it was coming when I saw our Instagram picture was deleted off his profile at 2:08 am on a Friday night. I wasn’t ready, and I didn’t want it to happen. But wow, am I glad it did.
In the span of a year, I had been dumped around 4-6 times by the same man. Pathetic, I know. The toxic cycle of being afraid to be alone can eat you up and spit you back out, each time leaving you more and more chewed up. When the final “I’m breaking up with you” stuck, I held my ground against the paragraphed texts asking for another chance (as if there hadn’t been 1000 already). I cried my eyes out and forced myself to be something I never thought I was; tough.
Now as I reflect on my six months free, I couldn’t be happier, and I realize that in those early breakup stages, I felt the most alive than I have throughout my lifetime.
The nights spent sobbing in a friend’s bed while piling nicotine into my lungs to make the pain stop turned into sleepovers, where we gossiped about boys and shared stories about our relationships that we used to keep secret out of embarrassment. It became… fun. My friends listened when I wanted to rant in circles. We spent some nights driving around town, marking each of our past lovers who didn’t work and screaming the lyrics to Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo at their windows.
We put on sad music when I wanted to cry, but my friends’ first priorities were to make sure I had a fun night out. We’d stay up until sunrise, not having to send a text message to a jealous boyfriend to let him know I was okay. For the first time in a long time, my mind was empty, and I loved it.
I focused on improving friendships and caring about the people who made the effort to care about me. I became selfish in the best way possible. I did what was best for me, as I finally had the time to do so. I got to know myself, dancing in front of a mirror singing a Billie Eilish breakup song and appreciating things about my body that he never did.
Life doesn’t always have to be focused on finding someone new. Being selfish is probably the best feeling in the world, especially in your 20s.
Sometimes you don’t realize how extremely low you feel in a relationship until you break free from it. I’d go through all the crying and self-doubt again, just to feel that weight lifted off my shoulders, one more time.
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