Breaking up really is hard to do. It hurts. It’s a breaking apart of two things. What was once something is now nothing. Where there were two eyes looking back into yours from across creased and furrowing sheets, there’s now a bed’s empty half, a blank canvas of linen, a pillow marred by a now empty depression where the half moon of a sleeping face once was.
The uninhabited parts of you hurt the most. Your head reels with the hypothetical, your heart aches to disjointed beats and your hands reach for something you can’t have, someone you don’t know anymore, a feeling you can’t write down. There are steps to this and there are rules. You will be okay.
The first step is sadness. There is a grief in broken things. Once the rift occurs, let your sadness in. Embrace the feeling with your whole heart. The sadness starts as an itch you can’t reach, prickling the bottom of your feet or perched just below the small of your back. Let it itch. This is part of the process. If you ignore your pain and refuse to suffer, you won’t get through this. This is part of being a human and you will find a beauty in your heartbreak.
Let the grief fill you to the brim. Watch “Titanic” and cry ugly tears into your sofa or a friend’s shoulder. Stare blankly at the blue sky and the white pages of a notebook. Sleep for 16 hours of the day and eat every fried or processed product you can get your hands on. Let this feeling run through your veins. Let the sadness in, and then rid yourself of it.
Force your sadness out. Remove it from your body piece by piece by giving yourself new purposes. Start with your feet, and move up your legs. Take to the track or treadmill and run until, little by little with each pummel into the pavement, your legs are free of sadness. Instead, they race and tingle with the sensation of purpose. You’re getting there.
Then, use your hands. Your hands are at their best when they create. Take to paintbrushes, pens and pianos. Construct something. Build. Design. Where feelings of desolation once were, forge the  thrill of creating something where there once was nothing. Plant a tree, take up cross stitching, write letters to strangers, take a Sharpie to bathroom stalls. With your fingers, trace the lines of your palms and rejoice in the tickle of possibility. Lace your fingers together and whisper a prayer of gratitude toward the sky that was made for you. Those are your hands and you’re getting better.
With your arms, hug yourself and strangers until you’ve remembered what connection feels like. Walk with a friend, elbows linked, shoulder to shoulder, until sadness has drained from your chest. Fill your stomach with ripe fruit and chocolate cake and sway your hips wildly to your favorite songs.  Feel your body shaking the sadness away. With your fresh and sadness-free new body, step up to the mirror and realize you’re smiling.
Leave your house with deliberate footsteps and widened eyes. You are not broken. You are You 2.0. The world is sweetened with potential. Think freely and openly amid the milieu of achievable bliss.
It’s still going to hurt sometimes, though. You will wake from a dream to a damp, tear-stained pillow. Your head will dizzy with memories of what once glowed underneath the traffic light. Someone will ask you, “How are you doing?” and you will respond, gaping mouthed and silent, with a head tilt and a shrug, unable to form the words, “Not so good today, not so good.”
Remember when you wake up, you’re awake and alive with the clarity of time behind you. Go back to sleep. When the light turns green again, and it will, keep driving. Someone will ask you, “How are you doing?” and you will be able to honestly say, “Really good today.”
The sadness is important. In our grief, we learn. When we are alone, we reflect. In ignoring the sadness, you risk your humanity. Soak in your sadness like a hot bath, resting your chin against its soapy crest. But then get out of the tub. You always have to get out of the tub eventually.
Something has ended, but the world continues, and it continues for you. Your friends are here and depending on you. Whether you need them or not, right now they still need you. We, your friends, are counting on you. We’re counting on you to keep waking up each morning, and smile, and hold our hands when we’re feeling the pain you were strong enough to overcome.
Breakups mean the relationship is over, but the world isn’t. That world was there before the breakup, and it’s the same world through and through. Breakups hurt like hell. But they happen, and we have to face them. I can’t make your pain go away, but you can. Only you are in control of this, so take initiative.
                  The other half of the bed might be empty, but it won’t be forever. This way you feel won’t be the way you feel forever. Don’t let it kill any part of you. Your empty parts will soon be full again. Your aches and itches will fade. There’s other faces out there, but yours is the most important. Don’t forget about it. Wake up. You’re going to be okay. You already are. You always have been.