Loving Me

That Feeling

You know that feeling you get when you know you have officially screwed yourself over? The feeling that forms in your stomach that makes you want to throw up but nothing is there? The feelings of something like rocks weighing you down? That's exactly how I feel. Those words that I had mentally prepared myself for later on in the relationship were the exact words that broke me. "I don't think we should continue our relationship."

Of course I took it well when it all went down, not a tear in my eye, a smile on my face. I understood. What he doesn't know is that inside, I was screaming. Begging him not to do it, hoping that maybe just maybe he would realize that he did still want to be with me. As he hugged me goodbye and I got in my car it slowly began to hit me, it was over. The boy I had begun to fall for had just walked away. I pressed my lips into a thin line and realized that he had just ended things for the same reason I almost didn't date him. "You're a senior and I'm just a sophomore. You're leaving soon, we would have to break up eventually. This way it won't hurt us as bad." I couldn't be mad, he was completely right. I had planned to end things with him myself at some point. I just hoped it would be me to end things.

Everything hurts worse when you prepare yourself for the blow, because in that bitter moment you forget everything. It is like cliff jumping. You prepare yourself for the moment, people tell you what to do and what not to do, and yet when you finally work up the courage to jump, everything is gone. You no longer remember what you had prepared yourself for. The freefall is what it feels like through the entire relationship, a rush of excitement mixed with happiness that you worked up the nerve to go for it. Then you hit the water, it consumes you covering your body, going up your nose and leaving it burning, and the pain of the water slapping you from the momentum.

Just like the end of the relationship. The stinging pain of the words echoing over and over in your head and the burning sensation of the hot tears streaming down your face. Yet, once you are out of the water, back onto the boat, you become yourself again. Wanting oh so badly to do it again and again and again. We get over broken hearts, we pull ourselves together and go back to our normal routine, but this time without that person and that is okay. We love the rush of love. No matter what the pain you feel when it is over, you always recover and it all becomes okay again.

My name is Scarlet, and this is the story of how I learned to love myself once I thought I was no longer loved by anyone else.