Congratulations On Your Breakup (No, Seriously)

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Congratulations! We are so happy for you. He finally broke up with you. We waited so long for this moment and now that it’s here, we are just so elated. I know you’re confused. I know you’re probably sad. And really, that’s okay. You will be for awhile. Maybe a few weeks, maybe a month, maybe more. Someone told me after I left Chris that it would take half the time I was with him to get over him. I was with him, on and off, for about two years. I’m not sure how the math works with the off time, but it took me awhile. Sure, the new guy helped, but if I’m honest with you, it really took a couple years to get over the love I felt. But loving is okay. It makes you human. It makes you real. It makes you better than he will ever be.

We don’t mean to sound spiteful, or douchey, with the whole congrats thing but honestly, if he didn’t do it, you wouldn’t have. And really, if you sit down and you think long and hard about it do you think it was good thing? Come on, be honest. All the times he cancelled plans with you to hang out with his bros? And that he even referred to them as bros should have been a warning sign for you. Or every time he got a text between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. and flipped his phone over, eventually just silencing it after it began to happen almost every night and just told you oh it’s just xyz or abc. Or when he’d get black out drunk and tell you how he couldn’t see himself with someone like you and scream at you to leave only to cry hours later as the black began to turn to gray that he needed to spoon you. Or how he never asked your favorite color. Or wondered what your favorite John Hughes movie. Or how he always had plans when you asked to meet your family.

We saw it. We heard it. We hurt with you. Do you understand how hard it was to sit beside you as you cried? Or how it was almost impossible to not confront him ourselves when he put you down, or hit on other girls in front of you? It’s okay if you don’t. You were so blinded by the possibility that he might become the man you wanted and we get that. Because we get you. Because we’ve loved you since we all met. That’s what friends do. They just love and make sarcastic comments like congratulations after a break up and tell you to text us whenever you’re lonely instead of him and that we’d spoon you any time, any place.

I hope you don’t feel like you were weak. Sometimes we stay in things too long or for the wrong reasons. Sometimes we thought you did too. But that’s not what this is about. This about the celebration that you can start living your life again. You can do what you used to love to do before you met him and forgot about that person that he may have not loved but that we always have.

Go to the movies. Go see a show. Dance your ass off at karaoke at the local dive bar and flirt with the guy who sings your favorite song badly. Let him buy you a drink. Or buy him one. Laugh really loud at silly jokes. Pop in Dumb & Dumber and quote it line for line. Eat Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food. Join the 80s night Facebook event for Saturday and make us all go too. You dress up like Cyndi Lauper, I’ll go as Madonna. Masturbate. Every day. Cause it feels good. Watch some porn. Sometimes get crazy choose a different category of it, maybe laugh, maybe get even more turned on. Call up a family member you haven’t talked to in awhile. Ask them what their favorite day of the week is. Tell them you love them. Look in the mirror. Find something beautiful about yourself every single time. If you need help, text or call one of us, we will tell you what we love about you. The most beautiful part about you, I think, is when you’re driving and you’re concentrating your top lip curls up on the right side and your nose crinkles. I love that. It’s cute and it’s confused and it makes me want to help you but also watch you stress cause it’s so adorable. Or just cry a lot. Relax in your bed with your favorite blankets, Teddy Bears, tissues, wine, or tea, and cry your heart out.

Let him go. Let it go. Get back to you. And when you do let us know so we can all celebrate it together.

thumbnail image – kenichi nobusue