The Six Stages of Heartbreak

First the colours fade. The bright reds and blues turn to greys. The sunsets turn to just another time of day. The parks that you picnicked in turn cold and mock you with their happy couples. That bouquet of roses you bought for her is still sitting by the door, wilting. The deep reds and pinks turn to yellow and grey and crumble like ashes. The pictures you took start fading, her smile becomes less radiant. But you don’t look at your pictures, because then you start drowning in memories and the what-ifs. You avoid the pictures, but you can’t avoid the music.

Then the music loses meaning. The song that you listened to everyday as you dropped her off at work. The song that you danced to in her room. The entire playlist she made for you so that you can think about her all day. The birds that chirp. The leaves that crackle under your feet. Everything reminds you of her and all the things you’ve done together. One day, two weeks later, you’ll be in a café, thinking that you’ve gotten your life back together, when that song plays. It’s a song that you’ve only heard once before, that time you let her drive your car. The wind is blowing her hair everywhere and she’s laughing and this song came on and all you can think is just how beautiful she is, how you want to spend the rest of your life with her. And at this moment in this chic café indulging in your cheesecake and overly expensive latte, you realise exactly how much you’ve lost.

The food doesn’t taste so good. She used to steal your fries; now, you save your fries and swear that if she ever comes back, you’ll let her eat all of them. You think how you’d save your money to take her wherever she wanted to go, if only she’d come back. Your favourite pasta tastes too rich now. Besides, no one can make it the way she used to make it. Even if anyone could, it wouldn’t be the same eating it without her. So you meander in front of the TV and hope that something will be on that distracts you from her. Instead, it’s that mushy rom com that she asked you to watch with her for months. You ignored it, promising that you would watch it some other time. But you never did keep your promise.

And suddenly, you realise that if she would come back, you’d watch all of them with her. Every single couple on screen reminds you of her. Everything you watch reminds you of her, but she’s better than any of the characters. She’s smarter and prettier and just better. You see the couples going on dates and to the beach and all you can think about is how you don’t even want her to come back, you just want one more day with her. One day to show her all the love that you forgot to show her.

When your friends make you go out, you think about every time she asked you to stay home with her but you went out. ‘It’s ok’ they say. ‘It’s natural. You’ll find someone new’. You try to believe them, but how can you find someone new when everything you had and everything you were and everything you wanted to be was personified into this one perfect human and you’re starting to forget all the fights you had and you’re forgetting how to live without her. You’re starting to imagine her as perfection, and who could ever live with losing that? Who could ever live up to that? But you still go out with your friends.

But one day, you’re out. Your friends didn’t have to drag you out. You’re sitting in the café, and today, the song doesn’t play. You think that you might actually be doing something right. A girl comes in and sits in the only empty seat—the one across from you. She has a book that you like. You think, ‘I could just say hi’. There’s nothing wrong with that. So you say hi and she smiles this radiant smile that lights up the whole room.

And with that smile, the colours start brighten again.