Free

Breakups from a serious relationship are so strange.

When you’re with someone long enough, they become a part of your routine. You have little inside jokes and holiday traditions but then, in a second, all of this is gone.

Sometimes you see a plane and remember how you used to be long distance. Any time you were flying it was to see him. You sit on the playground with the kids you nanny and think about the time you talked your way out of trouble with a policeman while you were swinging late at night, and about the stargazing you did there together. You don’t usually think of him when you eat pizza, but sometimes take a moment to reminisce about the dozens of times he came over to make one together. You’d laugh as his inexperienced hands kneaded the dough while he asked if he was doing it right a million times.

It’s great being able to look back at a relationship and smile — it shows that at least some of it was real. Some of the memories are happy, but at the end of the day you realize sometimes when something is broken it isn’t meant to be fixed. It couldn’t have been fixed, and although you tried, you finally realize you’re moving on to something new. You’re finding something that will actually belong to you, instead of just something fleeting, something borrowed. He wasn’t really yours, and never will be, but you’re okay with that.

For the first time, you realize your life is going to be more than just fine. It’s going to be great — without him. This is what it is to be free.