How to Survive a Breakup. Lisa Cleary
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breakup seemed trivial in comparison to the aches and pains of others, but it still hurt. I hurt. I had loved someone whole-heartedly for many years, and I felt conned and empty. I wondered what my ultimate life plan was and what obstacles I still needed to jump. The thought of not being able to fully control my future was frightening, and I no longer wondered when I’d have the chance at legitimate love; I wondered if.
Breakups near, during, and beyond your thirties make for incredibly lonely and isolating times. A breakup is nowhere near as jolting as the “D” word: “divorce,” which is why many family and friends may even fail to acknowledge the situation at hand. Still, the sting of it all lingers. Breakups are also a far cry from ones in your twenties, a time when your best girlfriends could blow off shifts and take sick days to be by your bedside with no questions asked.
Now, because friends have increasing priorities, like significant others, husbands and families, more demanding positions at work, and even worries over aging parents, the sympathetic shoulders to cry on are harder to come by. People are busy. When I juxtaposed my voids against the happiness of my mostly female friends, many of whom were married and even pregnant with their second child, it made me want to push them even further away. I didn’t want to break down to my best friend about my fear of loneliness when her child was screaming, ready for a feeding, in the background.
I felt so… incredibly juvenile.
During the course of the next year, as I adjusted to a new apartment and a new job, I felt very alone. I had never lived alone, and so moving into unfamiliar surroundings, by myself, was frightening and I became depressed. No one prepares you for what it feels like to move out of a very luxe rented apartment, afforded by two salaries, to the cheapest unit in the basement of a complex that’s thirty miles outside of the city.
And so, I barely cried, and I mostly mulled. The holidays were anxious times for me, with the early darkness of late fall and winter particularly tough. At the New Year, I congratulated a burst of friends on their engagements, some of whom I thought would never settle down, and some of whom had moved past their first marriage and were now planning for their second. Come Valentine’s Day, I ordered cheesy breadsticks and broccoli bites and watched Gone Girl. And, as a new spring approached, I realized that I was really alone.
Please RSVP to Help Me
Even though I knew it was detrimental, I continued to compare my life to everyone’s social media posts: more bachelorette parties. More baby showers. Too many festivities. I wondered why Bed, Bath & Beyond didn’t encourage single people like myself to open up registries as a declared rite of passage: if you’re 30 years old and single, you have more than earned the right to throw yourself a party and invite all of your friends to buy you expensive things.
However, no one helped me to expand upon my own homeware. I instead racked up my credit card to purchase what had been split up and taken during the move. I saved my Domino’s preference settings in my phone, so that ordering pizza could be swiftly completed with several taps. I buried myself under my comforter whenever I felt full, and slept in past noon on the weekends. My planning and long-term goals were no more.
I was feeling really sorry for myself.
I’m Here: Because Everyone Else is Busy
Now, I understand what it feels like to hurt, but then to stand back up to whatever life throws at you. I understand what it feels like to achingly assume that you’re five steps behind your friends, and how it feels when you can’t afford your own summer vacation, because you’ve been invited to your sixth wedding of the season… without a guest. I understand your “Duo by Default” fear, and how it feels to be the thirteenth wheel at a dinner outing that you planned. Now, I understand that this is life and that, no matter how much you have, you’ll never be happy if you expect everything to be perfect all of the time.
Finally, I know now what it takes to heal and what expectations you should set for yourself through the journey. Happiness is work. In fact, it’s some damn hard work, and the really tough mental kind, like my days of high school AP statistics, when I had three tutors and still almost failed.
And that’s why I’m here. I’m not famous, and I’m not a life coach. I’m not going to jumpstart your magical life transformation to set you on a new path in just 48 hours. I’m here as a writer who used to dole out lists and advice to now share how I realistically recovered from my breakup. I’m here to stop you from buying Puffs lotion tissues in bulk and to push you to climb out from underneath of your covers.
So what if you’re 30 years old? Or, over the age of 30, like me? I’m here to show you how, day by day, everything will be OK. I’m here to talk to the women and men who feel like they have no one to talk to, because everyone else is busy.
It’s time to get real together—and, let me start by sharing my story.
1* Happy Couple Photos
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There’s Always a Story
Before we dig deeper, let me share my story. Everyone always has a story.
I was an unsure late bloomer when it came to relationships, and I always second guessed myself. In high school, I never felt confident about my appearance and finger-painted my face with greasy drugstore makeup, and I was the geeky, behind-the-scenes writer of the newspaper and yearbook committees. I never got asked on dates and always went to homecoming dances with friends or by myself. I was desperate to be liked, but I never felt worthy of it.
Fast forward to my collegiate days: I entered college as a 17-year-old virgin and was teased relentlessly for it. “No, Leah, I have never seen a penis,” or “But I’m scared of STDs, and he’s wearing salmon shorts,” were the frequent answers I repeated. Over and over again.
I still cared what others had to say, but this time I wasn’t going to play desperate: I promised myself going into college that I would lose my virginity to my first love and, eventually, I did. It was the perfect day, and our relationship went on to last for about four years.
But, like with many college couples, we broke up about a year after we graduated, and so I threw myself into my career. I was already working full time in medical editing and publishing, a job which largely required me to thumb through page proofs after page proofs of vividly depicted genital infections. After a year of that, I also enrolled in graduate school—full time. I kept at the grueling schedule of work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., classes from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and assignments from 10 p.m. until well past 2 a.m. While I’m a naturally driven person, my motivation was based off of one factor: I was desperate for some sort of passion in my life. I needed a drastic change.
On top of all of that—a few months after I started graduate school—an opportunity to work part time for NBC as a daily health columnist was offered, and I jumped at the chance, knowing that the exposure could open many doors. I wrote early in the mornings and late at night, after my classes and assignments, and I worked even longer hours during the weekends.
I maybe slept four hours a night and managed the best that I could. Every Sunday evening, I meal planned: I ordered a week’s worth of takeout at Wendy’s at once and, for the rest of the week, I dined on containers of chili, hamburger patties, and cold, soggy fries. I took naps in my car during lunch breaks, and I was frantic but organized. During that period and, most important of all, I only had time to focus on one thing: myself. I quickly became self-aware of my capabilities as a writer, and my confidence flourished.
That mindset soon began to permeate the rest of my life.
Over the course of the next two years, I dated off and on, for periods of six months or so at a time, and no one ever seemed to stick. If the chemistry wasn’t there, I moved on. Instead of spending time on mediocre date after date, I finally acknowledged that I had the power to control my own dating life and denied easy, available opportunities to free myself up for more substantial individuals—a direction that I had been traveling all along in my writing career. Not only was I redirecting my mindset in all aspects of my life, but I was finally taking