anatomy of a breakup. part 1. panic.

Panic is a mix of denial and desperation. You can't change what's occurred, but you really can't face that, not right now. All you want to do is run until your lungs give out, or get on a plane and fly home to the arms of your mother (who knows, in her heart of gold, that you're going to be just fine), or hear the words come out of your best friend's mouth, "Cry it out baby, 'cause you're going to be okay."

Your heart races and you seem completely unable to control what happens with your body. You may feel faint, and you'll sob hysterically. There will be these tiny, shining moments of lucidity, where you remember that everything's going to be alright, in between the crying, but they will be fleeting for now. Your head will ache and your eyes will swell. You may or may not feel like you are drowning, like you can't shake it off. It clings to you like high humidity, refusing to let the tears dry, refusing to let you breathe.

(Just so you don't think this is the complete bottoming-out of depression, because it's not, I'll leave you with a quote from my mother after we talked for hours tonight, 1am her time: "The next time you meet someone, would you just ask them straight up, 'Are you an alcoholic?' Could you just do that?")

There is just panic. Because you'll be alone. Because that was the person you were supposed to marry. That was the person with whom your future belonged. Which means, by proxy, in your desperate brain, that you no longer have a future. This, of course, is something you'll get past, but at the moment it's all-consuming. Who will mow the lawn? Who will smile at you when you come home from work? Who will take you out for dinner on your birthday? Who will surprise you with a back massage after a long week?

Right now, no one. You're alone. You're going to be alone for a while. You will need to learn to wake up without someone rolling over and putting their arm across your chest. You will need to learn to go to bed without hearing, "I love you." You will need to cry by yourself when you've had a bad day at the office. You will have no one to comfort, no one to uplift, no one to make love to. And so you feel the desperation of panic rise up in your lungs, squeeze your throat, and wreck your brain.

This is the first part of the breakup. It's one of the hardest, so do your best to get through it.