Even the most respectful and cordial breakups are inevitably messy—not because anyone intended it, but because the resulting emotional rollercoaster is impossible to avoid.
After several months of embarking on my own healing journey, I can say that the 5 Stages of Grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) are true. And even after you think you’ve gone through them all, you revert back to an earlier stage and begin the cycle all over again—because healing is not linear.
But I’ve learned to make peace with the rollercoaster. I’m no longer surprised when a pang of grief arises seemingly out of nowhere. I’ve learned to expect it and just roll with the punches, because that’s the only way to process heavy emotions: I have to allow myself to feel them. Not to dwell on them, but to let them have their moment before proceeding onward with life. I know that suppressing or numbing will only bite me in the long run, so here I am, ripping the Band-Aid off for as long as it takes. It’s painful, but necessary.
It’s crazy how your mind can play tricks on you after experiencing a severed connection. You can’t help but wonder how you could be so easily discarded. You wonder how someone could walk away so resolutely and move on from you so quickly without ever looking back. It makes you question your worth and wonder if there’s something wrong with you that makes you so easily forgettable and replaceable, even though you know these thoughts aren’t true and that even the person who left wouldn’t want you to feel this way about yourself. These are just the thoughts that naturally come with navigating heartache, even though you know they have no real weight.
But there are subtle signs of progress in the midst of this rollercoaster ride.
It’s when you choose to listen to an upbeat song instead of that sad song you’ve had on repeat for weeks. It’s when you finally stand up and wipe your eyes after being curled up on your bed crying, to do something that makes you come alive again and brings the fire back into your eyes. It’s when you lose yourself in laughter and have so much fun with friends that you forget, for a moment, what it means to be sad. It’s when you finally take off the rose-coloured glasses and are able to see the imperfections in your past relationship rather than over-idealizing it and putting it on a pedestal. It’s when you realize that grief and peace can coexist … that the restlessness you once felt is being replaced by a mysterious sense of alignment.
It’s when something shifts and you find yourself looking forward instead of backward. It’s when you used to see nothing but closed doors, dead ends, and futures that were snatched away, but are now able to sense possibility in the air again—that soft sense of yearning, hope, and wonder for what lies ahead. It’s when you find yourself feeling excited for what is to come rather than lamenting what is lost. It’s when you finally give up knocking on doors that have firmly shut and embark on entering new doors that are opening for you. It’s like inhaling a breath of fresh air after growing accustomed to the stale air of a decaying room that has nothing left for you anymore. It’s like a cold, miserable winter slowly thawing into a warm, promising spring.
Strangely, despite going through a breakup, I feel incredibly and abundantly loved.
I can’t fully express the amount of gratitude I feel for everyone who has noticed me broken and has stooped down to help me pick up the pieces. To those who checked up on me and volunteered their car for me to cry in; to those who listened to me vent and tell the same sob stories over and over again; to those who sent me empowering voice messages to hype me up and remind me who I am; to those who DM’d me to say they could relate to my experiences and I wasn’t alone; to those who invited me to hang out and helped me forget my troubles for a while; to those who prayed for me even without my knowledge; to those who didn’t even know I was hurting but blessed me with their lovely presence and gave me a reason to smile—I am grateful for all of you. It makes me feel like I must’ve done something right to be surrounded by so many amazing people from different phases and spheres of my life.
I’m sure that despite writing this, there will still be moments of grief that hit me from time-to-time. But that’s okay. That doesn’t mean I’m not healing. Because everything I just described—the ups and downs, the confusion and the clarity—it’s all part of the healing process. All of it. So if you, too, are going through a similar situation or are in some sort of “in-between phase” like this, hang in there. We’re in this together.
Change is in the air for the better. Best believe it. ✨
– Celine (@itscelinediaz)
Celine Diaz: Real Talk 