Grieving the Unexpected

If you are recently dealing with a heartbreak or even just a slight heartache, this article may be for you. If you are in a perfectly happy relationship/cohabitation/etc., this article may still be for you.

In this modern era of online dating and social distancing romance, it can sometimes feel impossible to find 'the one.' After what felt like forever from when my last boyfriend dumped me, I finally got the courage to jump back into online dating. Bumble, Tinder, Match... you name it, I most likely tried it. Several ghostings and many tears later, I met a man online who off-the-get wasn't my typical go-to characteristics in a partner (physically and interest-wise) based on his profile. I decided to take a chance and swipe right.

What blossomed from that was something I felt was incredibly wonderful! We shared more interests in common than his profile led me to believe, we were both quirky and weird, and he made me feel truly beautiful despite my body insecurities and self-perceived flaws. For near five months, I was more happy than I had felt in an astonishingly long time.

It's October now. We've been dating for four months at this point. I leave for a birthday trip with my little sister; we had this planned well before I met my boyfriend. It was a two-week long vacation road-tripping throughout Kentucky and Tennessee to fill out our National Park and Recreation Passport Books (a whole adventure and story for another time). I asked him to watch my cats while I was gone, which he agreed too, and told him he could stay at my apartment to save on gas as well as eat my food.

Each day of the trip I would text him about our mini-exertions through the wilderness as we hiked different forests, explored the Great Smoky's, and learned about the history of the places we went to. With each conversation and each FaceTime, my feelings grew. All seemed great! I got back a few days early to spend sometime with him before I had to return to work.

On my third day home, he broke my heart. I saw him in both the morning and the afternoon. Everything was peachy. I came home for the night after my double at the restaurant where I work and it became quite apparent something was wrong. His demeanor had changed. He was unusually quiet, kept tearing up here and there. He said he was having a rough day because he felt like a bad person. I tried to comfort him; every time I hugged him or tried to hold his hand, he was distance and unreceptive. I tried not to pry or make him feel forced to talk if he didn't want to.

At that point, however, my intuition had a pretty good feeling what was up. I had gone through enough App ghosting, shady texts, and unnatural behavior to know that something good was not coming from whatever was wrong. I got sick of the weird energy he was emitting and finally asked if he was breaking up with me. He couldn't even tell me yes at first, just started bawling. Believe me when I say that I had never been more blindsided by dating than hearing him confirm it after his tears quieted.

The first week was the worst. I cried sporatically whenever I was away from people. I cried at everything that reminded me of him. I cried knowing that I had to see him again so soon after to get my things from him. I probably shed so many tears that Moby-Dick could've had his own personal swimming pool in my apartment as his salty vacation getaway.

What did I do wrong? How come this happened? Could I have done something differently to change this outcome? echoed throughout my consciousness every damn day. And while logically I knew it was not my fault (or even his for that matter), my brain just couldn't process why, why, why. We were so compatible in so many ways. It had felt like he was the one for me long-term. I took that feeling and smushed it away.

Enter the second week. Anger filled me. Talk about moody and evasive. Everyone wanted to know what happened. I wanted to forget, ignore, delete. Ms. Brain had compartmentalized well, but with each person in my life needing to be updated, that box in my brain eroded far more quickly than I wished it too.

How dare he? Screw him! I don't need him or any man! His loss! all repeated on shuffle in my head. I wanted to fight my feelings that week. I wanted to pound them down to ash, burn them to smithereens, crush them out of existence. Anger was better than feeling my heart break into two.

He was my second boyfriend I had every had. One of my longest relationships I had ever been in. The closest experience I have had to first love. It made me even more angry to think about these facts and put them into perspective, that the time we spent together was so short compared to the life I had left to live ahead of me.

I've entered week three now. Throughout this ordeal, I feel that this week is the reflective one. The one where I finally have a hold on my emotions, where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, where my brain has finally accepted what has happened and how to proceed moving onward.

For those still reading along, here's the life lessons to take home from my experience (especially if it's something you're going through too).

Do not ever deny yourself the opportunity to grieve. Whether it's a relationship, the passing of a loved-one, the loss of a job, whatever it may be; the energy you exert fighting this process is only going to delay the inevitable. You need this process physically and emotionally to heal from grief you are experiencing. Shed those tears. Get angry. Take a deep breath. And let it go afterwards to move onto healing.

There is no one-size fits all time frame. For me, I felt like my process of grieving and healing felt excruciatingly long while it was happening, but in retrospect was short in comparison to many in similar situations. Whether it truly is shorter or not is completely irrelevant. Your personal process does not need to follow a timeline; you do not need to compare it to anyone else's because we all experience the sensation of grief differently. I took around three weeks, you may take ten weeks, someone else may take two days. All of these times are normal. Forcing your process to speed up or cutting it out completely will not help you heal in the long haul. Temporarily your pain may subside, but the un-dealt with emotions will last in ways that may present themselves detrimentally in the future (trauma).

All-in-all, give yourself that time to feel your emotions and release that energy. Allow the space needed to cope your loss. Shed those tears! Smash that pain! Experience what you body is sending you so you can let it go, becoming the healthier, happier version of you.