Disappear.

You get over someone you've lost when you have no choice. I had no choice to move forward, as when I uttered that familiar 3-word phrase it freaked out the man I loved and he disappeared. And actually, if I'm honest, I can't "explain" how to get over someone I've lost, as I'm not sure I've even done it in this particular case. When feelings are felt intensely, it's excruciatingly difficult to accept them and feel them for what they are and not ignore them. Ignoring feelings borders on numbness, and while I wished to death I could be numb, I believe feeling my feelings actually helped me accept things and grow and mature. I'm not fully over this man. He was everything I thought I wanted. If a soul-mate ever existed, he was it. Why, I'd ask myself, would God allow someone into my life who made so much SENSE, who fit me like a glove, only to have him retreat into his own personal Hell and push me away? Why did he leave? I don't know why it frustrates me to use cliches, as I know EVERYONE asks these questions when they lose someone they love (e.g. "why me?"). Probably because I wish to be unique and special and feel like my feelings are "more valid" because it happened to ME, which is incredibly arrogant and sounds very entitled. So I use big words and try to exaggerate my feelings to make my experience seem "more legit," (read: pride) when in reality this is a common experience and everyone has gone through it. It's part of being human. However, that doesn't make any single person's experience of loss of love unimportant. It doesn't lessen its utter brutality. Feelings are valid because they are felt, regardless of whether they are irrational or exaggerated or melodramatic. The very idea that feelings are shared among humanity despite each of their unique circumstances means that we are all in this together, which should bring us together all the more, and bring about a sense of cohesion to the human race in regards to love and loss. Retreating into my shell and being reclusive and unresponsive to friends is the worst thing I can do. I have to push through, to find ways to move forward and be the best version of myself I can be. I need to engage in radical self-care, help others, laugh more (as Anne Lamott states: "laughter is carbonated holiness"), and seemingly paradoxically, not take things too seriously, including life itself, while at the same time legitimizing my experience as "really real" and honoring the pain that is present in it at times. The worst pain that is felt, in my experience, has been this very thing. Lost love.

When someone disappears without a word, is silent, ignores your insistent pleas for reconciliation, it is probably the most dehumanizing thing one could do to someone. Even when love is lost, the fact that I loved someone should be a celebratory thing, regardless of the fact that it was unrequited. I loved someone, and love is what the world needs, whether returned or shunned or accepted. I should feel empowered that I had the strength and willingness and courage to love.

Even if that person who I showed loved to disappeared.