UnHinged

A note on modern heartbreak

I had to stop wearing mascara to work.

So, if I had to have a mid-day cry, I could wipe my eyes and plaster on an I, Tonya smile and pretend to find my colleagues’ anecdotes funny. Going through heartbreak and still having to go to work is like warfare – especially in a job where you end up having a lot of time to yourself, thinking.

Thinking is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to do.

It was also a time when I couldn’t bear to listen to music – podcasts only – to drown out the heavy sadness that lingered in my head.

I had to start therapy.

This specific heartbreak brought up my cloudy childhood of being a sad, lonely little girl. I will always have her with me. I’m learning this now. I am getting better.

The confusion of this particular heartbreak was the most painful part – the reason why I needed a therapist, really. He just stopped talking to me, stopped replying. I needed an objective brain to help me unpick and understand what had actually happened.

I am still confused, but less in pain.

I was starkly, rawly, glaringly alone.

Most of my friends are in long-term relationships. Certainly not situationships. It made me look inwards and start asking what it was/is about me that led me into these relationships that have always ended, so far.

None of my friends have had to seriously use Hinge as a way of meeting people. This isn’t a game, it’s my life. I am single, starkly single. I am alone at the end of the day. That’s when it really hits you. After 10pm, that’s when you have to sit with your aloneness. When everyone else gets their goodnight text, I get a reminder from Duolingo to continue my streak. My friends are wonderful, but they have their person – the one that they can tell if they had a nice croissant that morning. It’s hard to be the one person without that one person.

I was once crying to my mum, asking why I keep getting hurt and I brought up one of my closest friends and her lovely relationship that has lasted a long time. My mum said that maybe they, and her boyfriend are an exception.

“But why don’t I get the exception?” I asked.

She couldn’t answer.

I had to stop listening to my favourite song.

Don’t Delete the Kisses by Wolf Alice. If you don’t know, get to know. If you are unfamiliar, the song is about having a crush on someone and not knowing what to do about it – whether to tell them or sit with the feeling. Eventually, the song concludes with the couple facing up to the fact that they’re meant to be.

I could not hear that part. It was too painful.

I know people have been through heartbreak before me. Of course. But, when it comes to the people I have chosen to be my family, I am the only one having been through the trials and tribulations of modern, straight, ‘dating’. As in, having to go on dates with multiple people, using Hinge, being victim to the 21st century man and his many interesting characteristics.

I don’t think I can take seeing another man with an avoidant attachment. Release me.

Being the Samantha of my friend group is great, don’t get me wrong. I do love to be single and date and have fun. But, like when Samantha got the flu, I am alone again, naturally.

The sadness came first – and in 40 feet tsunami waves of gut-wrenching pain – but the waves subside. They come less frequently and reduce in weight. Sometimes you get dragged back down – but you are able to come back for air a little easier every time it happens. Eventually, there will be a day when there are just small ripples over your feet, and you are able to feel them and smile at the memory of that ocean. A long, drawn-out metaphor but a good one, probably not thought of by me.

Thank you for indulging me.

Abi xx