I made the right decision. I know I did. I had been unhappy for the last year and a half and I had tried everything I could think of. Leaving was the brave thing.
Knowing it was right doesn't stop the mornings being brutal.
I don't miss him exactly. I miss the structure. I miss having someone to call when something small and funny happens. I miss the version of the future I had built in my head — the apartment we talked about, the trip we were planning.
People keep saying "focus on yourself now" as though the self isn't also slightly unfamiliar after four years of building a life around another person.
I'm finding out who I am outside of that relationship and it is stranger and more disorienting than I expected.
If you've been through a long breakup — not the dramatic kind, just the quiet painful kind where you both knew it was over before it ended — what did rebuilding actually look like? Not the glow-up montage. The real version. What helped you come back to yourself?