It’s tough when you get out of a relationship. There are a ton of different facets to that specific situation to begin with.

Love is a complicated thing after all, and it can affect one’s mental health 

I’d argue it’s easier to get over a situationship than it is someone you dated seriously.

A situationship can be all kinds of things, but you can (try) remove yourself from it.

Physical intimacy with someone you like is fun, but it’s not the most meaningful thing on the planet.

I’ve been ghosted so many times.

Getting completely ignored sucks but when it’s by someone you went on a date or two with, it hurts, but you can kinda get over it after a little bit. 

I would also argue one of the worst feelings you could ever feel on this planet is when you break up with a serious partner.

Again, there are different levels to this. Breaking up with a casual girlfriend after a couple months relationship sucks, but it’s easier to get over than the other extreme.

That extreme being meeting a woman, falling in love with her, having a long distance relationship for a majority of it, fighting through all the hells of that, and finally getting a brief respite where the relationship isn’t long distance, and doing “couple stuff” together. 

What is “Couple Stuff” in a relationship?

Couple stuff can be spending everyday together, being together most nights, having dozens of songs that make us think of each other, planning a marriage together, picking four baby names, planning to move out together.

Ya know all that super normal stuff every guy and gal do in a relationship.

But jokes aside, yeah, getting out of a serious relationship sucks.

A lot. That shit hurts. It’s so crazy how one moment, your entire world revolves around this one person.

It feels like you can’t breathe without this person.

Life with them just feels right. Then one day you wake up and they’re no longer in your life. 

It’s freaking terrifying.

It feels like the world is flipped upside down.

If being in a relationship is akin to being on the prettiest beach with the prettiest person you can imagine, then getting out of it is like falling through the sand into the water and drowning in perpetuity.

It feels so suffocating.

It just sucks. How can you go from sleeping in a bed with someone and being comforted by their soul and their body, to going to sleep cold and alone?

So how do you deal with this?

How do you go around living in a world that feels wrong?

But here’s the answer: you can’t, but you just do. 

I’ve been doing a lot of research on this. By research, I mean my social media algorithms. To answer this question though, well, I can’t.

You know what I do know? Love is beautiful.

Yeah obviously yadda yadda everyone knows that, or everyone says that at least. But dammit, it really is.

Love is one of if not the most powerful emotions a human can possibly feel. 

I know that because I’ve felt it before.

I felt it extremely recently as well, and I lost it extremely recently.

It feels like there’s a butcher’s knife in my belly flitting around throughout every second of every day.

I sometimes think “damn if I never fell in love with that beautiful, crazy girl, I’d be happy right now”.

I think of all the nights I could’ve gotten back, all the time I could’ve gotten back, all the pictures I wouldn’t have to delete, all the people I wouldn’t be worried about running into, all the things I’ve done to try to get over her, all the tears, all the calls, all the anxiety-ridden seconds of thinking if we’d get back together, all the pain, darn so much pain.

I wish I fell in love with someone else, someone who would’ve stayed in my life, someone who would have done for me what I did for them, and it all gets so much.

But you can’t think like that.

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from this 800 plus therapy essay, it’s that you should love people.

Love unapologetically.

Love like I did. I loved, and I got my heart broken. It wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.

If you like someone, go out with them, spend your life with them. If they’re lucky, they’ll spend the rest of their lives with you.

Don’t be scared to get your heart broken. We’re just specks of dust on this rock.

Finding another speck to love feels great, even if there’s a chance it might not work out. That’s what’s great about love: it either ends in soul-shattering heartbreak, or death.

There isn’t anything more beautiful than that. 

*Written for Ohana Homefront by Nick Scagnelli