After the Breakup

There are evenings when a person can say that a relationship has ended and yet cannot persuade the heart that the familiar life is gone. A room seems to retain an expectation. The hand reaches for the telephone before thought remembers the silence. Ordinary hours, once filled by small exchanges, become spacious in an unwelcome way. The ending has entered the facts of life before it has entered all its habits.

Do not begin by condemning yourself for this difference. The heart does not receive every change at the speed of an announcement. You have given time, attention and hope to another person; some of that attention will continue to move in the old direction. Your task is not to punish it into obedience. It is to guide it, patiently and truthfully, toward a life that remains yours to inhabit.

These pages concern the work of that guidance. They are written for the person who has been left, the person who has chosen to leave, and the person whose relationship ended through a decision both understood but neither found easy. An undefined connection can also leave a real absence. You do not need to establish the public importance of your loss before caring for its effect upon your days.