4 Things You Need To Tell Yourself After Your First Heartbreak

I am the girl that has stalked every social media site, cried to my ex boyfriends about him, and tried to drink him away. I am the girl that will always have a spot in my heart for him, but now I made a spot for myself, too. Which brings me to the very first thing you need to hear after your first heartbreak…

Love yourself

You walk down the stairs in the morning with puffy eyes, and your mom knows it was a long night. “You’re beautiful and smart and funny and he’s an idiot and someone will love…” she says, as you already begin to tune out. I’ll spare you the rest of the mom quote, because let’s face it… you heard it all before.

The words are just words and you don’t ever believe them because all you care about is him. Well stop. YOU come first. I didn’t realize that what everyone was telling me was true, until last night. I spit up word vomit on my dear friend, like my mother had to me— then I followed that with, “everyone is saying this for a reason” and then I thought to myself… take your own advice.

There is no set way of healing

I am only two months into the breakup, and I still think about him everyday and probably will for a long time. It’s okay for you to think about him too. It’s okay to look through your old pictures and cry. It’s okay to stalk him (within reason, people). It’s okay to watch sad movies, and listen to sad songs, and read sad quotes. It’s okay to shop the feelings away.

It’s okay to go out with friends. It’s okay to kiss lots of boys. Whatever helps you, helps you. Don’t let your friends who have never been in a serious relationship tell you that you can’t be sad or act a certain way. This is your life. Do what you want to do. It could take months; it could take years. I’m not there yet, but I’m okay. I know that one day I’ll be painting and I’ll realize I haven’t thought about him in days, and then it will be months, and then years until his crooked smile crosses my mind again.

You cannot blame him or yourself for not loving you anymore

Sometimes people fall out of love and that’s not a valid excuse to call him an asshole, key his truck, or burn down his house. It’s a part of life, a very shitty part, but a part nonetheless. You cannot force love and one day you won’t have to; prince charming is out there, even if it means kissing this frog to get closer to your happy ending. Regardless, you cannot play the what if games, because the fact of the matter is that it happened.

You lost someone who didn’t love you, but he lost someone who did

The first cut or heartbreak is going to be the deepest, and it will burn like hell; but don’t you think it’s going to burn him much more when he realizes what he lost? Pretty girl, you didn’t lose anything. You lost the 180lbs that walked away. That’s it.