Sometimes You Have To Save Yourself

What I’ve learned about heartbreak and secret relationships- but more about heartbreak than anything else is you have to be your own best friend, your own saving grace.

Right when it happens, the moment he takes everything you are made of and shatters it into a million pieces, your friends, your family, your mom, will be there for you, for a moment. They will let you cry, they will let you talk, they will let you wallow, but only for a moment. After that moment passes, they just can’t be there for you the way you need them to be, the way you want them to be, the way you would be there for them if this had happened to them.

He called me after acting weird for a couple of hours. We’ve been dating for twenty months, in those twenty months, no one knew we were together- we were never supposed to be together, we were never allowed to be together, so no one except two people in my life knew this secret I’ve been carrying around. So he called me, told me it was over, gave me an hour, one phone call, no explanation, it was done. Just like that, he didn’t give me a reason (I kind of knew why), he didn’t give me a chance, he made a decision for me (something he promised to never do). I went from ‘baby’ to ‘insert real name here’ really fast.

He slipped through my fingers in an instant, he died, he literally died. I will be lying on my death bed and will never hear his voice again, I will never feel his touch, I will never see his smile, he’s dead; but reality is, he is out there, living life, enjoying life, not thinking about me, but fully alive.

Anyways, the point was, he hung up that phone, and I rolled out of my car, fell onto my garage floor and started wailing. I ran across the street to grab my cousin (one of the two that knew) and told her. I called my best friend (the only person who 100% knew the truth from the beginning) but she didn’t answer. I lied there on my floor crying and crying. After two days of crying I called my mom, I told her the truth, there was no judgment, and she carried me for a week or two- checked on me, offered to be there with me, took care of me.

After a few weeks passed though even my mom stopped. The people I needed to check on me and tell me to keep going were gone. It’s been 5 months, I haven’t heard from him, no one checks on me, I wake up, go to bed, spend the day thinking about him. I can listen to the radio now, but I don’t dare look at anything that reminds me of him. I don’t cry often, but I have my breakdowns from time to time.

Last night was the most devastating. I tried to put into words how I felt, the fears that ran through my body and soul, I tried to vocalize how I felt at the moment to my mom, but it backfired. I got off the phone, I pulled myself together, I reminded myself I am my own best friend, I am my only hope of making it to tomorrow. This is my first heart break, my soul mate is gone, but I gained a best friend in myself.

The point is, know that no one will be there for you the nights you turn the page on every memory. No one will be there with you when you are staring at the razor blade and drying the blood off your arms. No one will be there when you are having that cigarette, when you are taking that swig of the drink your drinking. No one knows what you are experiencing, no one can hear the thoughts in your head, and no one can push you to go on, because honestly, no one has time to be there for you.

So girl, know that you are your own hero, you can do it.

You can cry, you can scream, you can revisit every memory. You can write about it, you can hurt over it, but know that YOU will be picking yourself up. So after you are done crying, smoking, drinking, writing, cutting, doing whatever you have to do to make it to tomorrow, invest in yourself. Do something that makes you happy, or sad, but do anything and everything you can for yourself.

Send yourself every quote, every article, everything you would send to someone experiencing what you are, and read it, save it, choke on it. Today you are your own best friend, tomorrow you are your own hero, and yesterday you were your own saving grace.

You can do it, you can do it, be you, be strong, be beautiful, save yourself.