No angry screaming matches, no doors slammed, just a quiet, sad, sorry announcement that your life as you know it is over.

You keep waking up and remembering that it is not a nightmare. You cannot eat. You know that this absolute hell is a cliché of human experience, but it’s a novelty to you. You try to reason, solve, protest, but none of your usual weapons find any purchase against the finality of it all. You have no control over it. Through it all, some analytical part of your mind keeps repeating “This is something you’ve never experienced before. You’re becoming more human. Time will heal you, you know it will”. The rest of you wants to jump ahead to that day when all the hurt is gone, when the common possessions are separated, when the memories make you smile again. You mourn them, those memories, and the plans you will now never fulfill. You wonder if you’ve squandered the last of your youth, whether you’ll ever have a love life again.

You find yourself facing that sorry look on everyone’s face. You put up a strong face for those that you know can’t stand to see you hurt. You find true friends, and incredible amounts of support from unexpected quarters. You get great advice, and horrible advice. You’re thankful that people care to give either one. You marvel at how much simple gestures come to mean, and how many there are.

And then the skies begin to clear. You feel yourself getting stronger as first sleep returns, and then some of your appetite. You find yourself thinking about the new chapter ahead, instead of the one behind, even starting to make plans. When before, you knew you’d eventually be all right, you now feel it.

(Thanks to everyone who is and has been out there, you know who you are. I love you.)