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An Open Letter to the Friend Who is Single Again: You are loved.

Dear Friend Who is Single Again:

I can only imagine the pain you are going through.  The moment where he or she is handing back your keys.  That moment you look on her Facebook wall and realize she has put up the status change update along with unfriending you.  The moment you see he has changed his relationship status to the name of someone else and *both of them* have unfriended you.

I just want to say you are still loved.

I know that is hard to hear the first month or so of your relationship falling apart from your friends.  I absolutely get you are reeling in your own despair of what has gone wrong here.  

What you have done wrong.  What you could have done better.  The smell of him or her still wafting through the place where you lived.  How no matter how many times you wash the sheets or the covers you still see him or her laying in the bed and sheets you both bought together.

How you can't even go past the place you both use to gather without breaking down.  You can't even be on the same block because you know "That place" is there holding your memories with that person.

I just want say you are still loved. 

In this new day and age of internet communication we, your friends, completely know you are spinning in your own relationship hell because sometimes it morphs into how you are dealing online.

A lot of three in the morning wide awake posts that your friends end up responding to seven hours later when they wake up and you are still awake.  Links to very sad songs and hashtags like #someonekillme or #dyingalone or #theendisnear 

I just want to say that your friends love you and you are still loved. 

But I have to tell you Friend Who is Single Again, that once you get past the one year mark and you are still up at three in the morning and watching an infomercial for Life Lift surgery and you are writing "This woman looks like the crushed dreams of my soul"

You are still loved.  But you need to stop this now.

Remember, Friend Who is Single Again when you were still not single and you had that friend that you just stopped inviting over to gatherings or hang out at the bar and watch the game or have a Ladies Brunch because for roughly two years they just have not gotten themselves back together to even have a decent discussion with?  Those horrible random moments where they seem really happy and then snap into some dark horrible broody conversation?

They tell you about the last date they have been on and they read from their journal in broken half prose about how this person was not like the last person.  The dark conversation where they know more about their ex online than you who is still their friend?

This is now you.

You are loved.  Now, Stop it. 

Of course it makes me sad to know you are still in pain and you are electronically being honest with us, your friends online.  But I hate to tell you this, Friend Who is Single Again:  After a year of you being morose and explaining to us in a Twitter post connected to your Facebook that you make it a point to never ride down Sunset Blvd because the name of the street reminds you of  the Sunsets you shared with your former boyfriend/girlfriend?

Stop it.  You now need to Stop this. 

Now don't get me wrong, Friend Who is Single Again.  The pain of this Ex Relationship will stay with you.  It will be a part of you for all times.  Some days you will look back on it fondly.  Some days you will hate the ground this person walks on.  Some days you won't even remember her sister's name.  And, that is all good.  But when it cripples you to the point a year or so later where you cannot even cook on your stove because it reminds you of him making eggs?

You need to stop it.  You are still loved.  But now we are slowly starting to realize the reason why he/she might have decided to move on.

When you find yourself up at three in the morning posting about your former relationship from a made for television movie where a Young John Travolta from Boy in The Plastic Bubble reminds you of how your heart feels like it can never be touched by human hands again for fear of "Heartbreak Disease" and it has been two years since you have broken up with him...

...and it's now ten thirty in the morning and the only person who comments is someone who says "I liked Boy in the Plastic Bubble?"

Know that you are still loved.  But all of your friends have given up on you stopping this.  We are only hoping you find someone new while realizing at this point it probably won't happen.  This ex-person wrecked you just by saying goodbye to a habit that they probably saw before we did.

Don't let your online life be your new relationship, Friend Who is Single Again.

Get offline.  Go to sleep.  The smell of his musk is only in your imagination when you lay down. Get offline.  Get new furniture from Craigslist if you have to. Listen to the music you listened to when you were not with them that you love.  Find *new music to love* Make it a point everyday to walk down that street you both walked down with your head up high by yourself without crying.

Your relationship is over.  I'm sorry.  Carry the pain but don't let it hashtag you into #crippling or #suicide 

Get offline.  Know that you are loved. 

Your friend,

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Powerful stuff, Shaun. Thanks for sharing.