you—then skip directly to those chapters. And read them over and over and over. Underline words. Earmark pages. Use this book as a journal. A good friend. A guide. And you do it, love, until you know—and are confident in—the choice you want to make. For you. And lastly, if you’re in a committed relationship—then I encourage you to read this as both a reflection and a growth opportunity. Not because you think in any way that your current relationship is headed toward an end—but rather, because you accept that endings in love are inevitable. And you’ve had them. And you will probably have them again. Read this book because you want to explore yourself. And your past. And you are ready to start harnessing the incredible power of knowing who you are when you are with other people.
So, read it however you need to read it. But I encourage you to read it.
And I promise you, after you do, you’re going to be armed with some pretty valuable tools. And all of them—love, all of them—come in the form of self-awareness. You’re going to come out of reading this knowing a lot more about who you are. And how you respond to situations. And types of people. And why you pick the people you pick. And make the choices you do in love. You’re going to come out of this knowing a little more about what you want. And what you will and won’t accept. And what you expect from others. And how love changes you. And what endings and beginnings look like in your life.
I hope I will make you laugh. And smile. And reflect. But mostly, think. And so maybe that’s the best place to stop for now. Right at the beginning.
**
1. The Beginning
A few things to get us started.
They say you should use your journey. So I am going to. And I want to begin with a confession: I am bad at breakups. I’ll get to what I actually mean by “breakups” in a minute. But I just want to start by saying it’s really hard to write that. It’s hard to even admit it. And—as uncomfortable as it makes me to write—especially in a book that will find itself in countless hands I both know and don’t—I am still going to do it. And I will because I believe—I have always believed—that the things that are hard to talk about are the only things that are ever worth writing about. I also know—when I go back to edit this—that I will for sure read these words with new eyes. Which means, I will also probably feel incredibly compelled to cut the raw details out. I know I’ll be sitting there in the final editing phase, hovering anxiously over the delete key—with these first few chapters completely highlighted. And all I’ll be doing is weighing.
The value of being real. Against the fear of being vulnerable.
These first few chapters—they are going to walk us both through the beginning of an ending. When it’s real and vulnerable and messy. When we don’t have bumper-sticker quotes to get us through. When we don’t get it right. When all we have is a crumbling reality, some big lessons to learn, and a massively broken heart. And you know, I’ll want to cut these details out not because they aren’t an important part of the story, but because—like all of us—I’ll want to protect myself.
From you. From what—you—will think of my story.
But I am starting this whole book by making myself a promise. That I will not do that. And the reason is simple, even if it’s hard. I am going to write what is hard for me to write because—during the times in my life I have really struggled, I have often stumbled upon words from other writers who have made me feel like they were writing my story. Simply because they had the courage to write theirs.
And that is what I want to do for you. I want to talk about the parts of life that are hard to talk about. And in doing so, show you how intertwined our stories really are. They may start and end a little differently—and may span different lengths of time and space—but at the core, we are all the same in love. We want it. We put our hearts out there. We trust the people we hand them to. And in the end, we either get what we’re looking for—or we learn.
And that is what this is about. So, contrary to the title of this chapter—like any good breakup story, we don’t start at the beginning. We start at the end.
Here goes.
The things that are hardest to talk about
are the only things
that are ever worth writing about.
**
So—if I were to take a guess, I’d guess that you are smack-dab in the middle of the overanalyzing part, right? Well before acceptance, and maybe even before pain—an ending just simply makes you think. Way. Too. Much. You get into this spin of overanalyzing every single word that was said. At any point. In any conversation. You go back and look for signs of things you didn’t see but think you should of. You reread text messages. You seesaw back and forth between “I absolutely don’t deserve this,” and “This was totally my fault.” You get mad that it’s happening—that someone you trusted could do this to you. To what you had. And then, inevitably, you give yourself a pep talk, pull yourself together, put on a brave face (even when you are absolutely in knots inside) and tell yourself there must be something you can learn from this. Right? Like—that wasn’t your person. And—you don’t want anyone who doesn’t want you.
Sure. And maybe that lasts for a bit.
But then the moments happen, don’t they? The ones you knew full well were going to happen but somehow still seem to blindside you anyway. You pass the coffee shop you used to go to together. You have to deal with that thing they always used to help you with. That day on the calendar comes. You get mail addressed to the two of you. You see the place they used to put their keys—or the absence of their phone charger hanging by their side of the bed. Or—maybe it’s as painfully simple as having to say it out loud. And explain why they aren’t coming. And won’t be.
And that is when it happens.
That strength you were doing so incredibly well with crumbles into a million little pieces. And you do what I think we all do but never talk about:
You go back.
You go back and start thinking it wasn’t that bad. You go back and start telling yourself there was love there. They were good to you. There were some incredibly good times. It’s like—you just try to erase the ending—the part where everything fell apart (and why)—and you rewind to the place you were last comfortable in. The place that was good. The place that made you—happy.
And that is the place where an ending starts getting complicated, isn’t it? Because there were good times. A lot of them. And you had a connection, didn’t you? And you were planning things. And you trusted them. And they made you feel something you hadn’t felt before.
Oh, love. I get it. I get it so much more than I have ever wanted to get it.
But this place—the one where it seems so much easier to go back than to move forward—is the place so many of us make a decision that changes the course of our whole lives without even knowing it. I mean, sure—there are, I am certain, so many circumstances where maybe we should go back. To fight for the person we love—who loved us. And just as equally—there are so many times we should walk ourselves away without ever looking back. And the trouble with that decision is that we are often forced to make it when we are all clouded with emotion. And so, we’re sitting there, alone on our couches or curled up in our beds with tears in our eyes, figuring out whether to move forward or go back without any real facts. Without any clarity. Without giving it the time we all know we need to give it,
