Standing After Your Barrel Broke in Niagara Falls

I just remember feeling numb when I first realized I was heartbroken. You never notice, at least I never did, until it hits you like a piano that fell out of an airplane. I think I started to break at work when I was filling the spinach tray at the salad bar. We talked about spinach. You always think of the stupidest shit, at least I always do, once you start falling. You find some random page and let your eyes wander. We talked about his dislike for spinach, laughed at me mistakenly grabbing vegan butter instead of real butter, joked about him throwing away clothes since he didn’t know how to do laundry. My eyes were watering before I realized it, and I ended up lying to my coworker that we needed more croutons and rubbing my eyes raw next to the salad cooler.

It’s one thing to get dumped. I’ve been dumped before and dumped people before. It stings a little, like when you pull off a long-stuck adhesive and spend the whole time your skin is burning touching the damn thing, and wondering when it will stop hurting. It’s another thing to learn you never had a chance. To feel unworthy, even if it’s no one’s fault. To know that even when you knew getting too close was risky, you fell off that cliff and now you’re paralyzed, pissed at yourself because you just had to go look to see what was down there.

It’s no one’s fault. That’s my mantra now. That and counting the ways this was a good thing. I’ve found quite a few. I can write things that aren’t centered on him, there’s no little jolt of joy when I hear my phone followed by the longing for him to come back, I’d feel nothing if he came walking back in once I answered the door and would happily close the door once he decided to leave again. Still, he seeps in my mind from time to time (Exhibit A - writing about him again), but it’s happier times. Me and the person he killed to become his optimal self. That guy taught me a lot. Taught me that drunken love can feel real, that I can find someone that will go above my already high demands, that I can have a genuine connection with someone.

It hurts still; otherwise, I wouldn’t have stuck my face near the onions and said they made me cry when my coworker came to check on me. But, I’m well past the very bottom of the hill, and I’m only going up from now on. One day, I’ll find the man of my dreams, and I hope he will too.