Creating a relationship with someone (serious or not) are blessings. But, like anything, they have the ability to end. One day, out of the blue, this relationship that had defined me, ended. To say I was devastated would be an understatement and I discovered why in fact they call it a heart break. I felt like someone had dropped me on the floor and not even bothered to sweep me aside. I never knew I could miss someone as much as I missed them and really just didn't understand.

But in this intense, humiliated, and broken state I learned a few things about who I am.

First, I am loved. You don’t know how truly loved you are until you experience loss. I still to this day, get choked up thinking of how many people went out of their way to support me. When I first told my best friend, she ran to my apartment in a t-shirt and underwear and held me as I sobbed uncontrollably on the floor. For weeks my poor mom answered my lonely, self-pitying calls.I felt how blessed I really am in ways I never imagined.

If you have ever suffered loss of any kind, my hope is that you felt the same love surrounding you. I will never again underestimate the power of sharing in another’s sorrow.

Second, I am a whole person. After weeks of relying on others and bawling my eyes out, I reached a point where I simply couldn’t keep crying. I had to keep going regardless of how much my chest hurt, how much pain I felt to smile or how sad I genuinely felt. I realized that I found myself living in my worst fear but I was the only one who could get myself out of it.

Although all of this was incredibly painful, this was perhaps the most strangely liberating realization of my life. With nothing more to lose, I took one step boldly into the unknown and started over again from the beginning. Almost like a second try and creating myself.

I gave up trying to plan how I thought things would go and did things that I wouldn't have done otherwise. I started to rework my ideas for myself and imagined what I wanted. I thought that by making others feel good eventually I myself would being to feel ok again.

I learned, I am able to love. This one I think took the longest, but may be the most important of the three. After all this immense hurt, I initially felt like I could never love anyone or anything again. It took me twenty years to open up to another person and swore it would take even longer to want to do so again

But in putting the pieces of myself back together slowly, I found I was creating spaces that never actually existed before. The love I lost transformed into other types of love. Love in my family, in my job and most importantly into my passions and things that would never leave. No matter your place in life or relationship status on Facebook, don’t wait for something drastic to actively work on yourself or who you are. Enjoy who you are, give a little more love, ask for a little more love in return.

I don’t believe that a memory with someone will ever go away. And in reality, if you really think about it, to miss someone is to sort of miss a part of yourself. You miss yourself with that person. You miss who they made you become. You became alive. You became ecstatic, enchanted, jubilant. You became the best form of yourself. And then out of nowhere, you aren’t you. Suddenly, you became someone that you weren’t familiar with. Truthfully, you don't just all of a sudden stop thinking about them or just pretend like you're ok to listen to "your songs" or go to all your favorite places together. Sometimes that persons smile will be forever engraved in your memory and you will always miss a part of them because for the longest time they were all you knew.

There are people in this world who need to be loved aggressively, unpromisingly and sometimes forcefully because they need to be shown that they are deserving of love and need to be in touch with every feeling that you could bring forward. But until then never forget that we are young, we make mistakes, we get hurt and we hurt others but to take every opportunity to grow. Remind yourself that you deserve the best. If his laugh doesn't claw it's way into your memory and his smile make you feel like the entire universe is right in front of you then you are wasting your time.

People say that time heals all wounds. But I don't agree with that. Time won't ever heal a wound to make you forget that it happened. It'll leave a scar to remind you what you faced and how you got fought through it. "You aren't going no where just because you haven't gotten to where you want to go. You are not damaged goods because you made a few mistakes and walking through storms and fighting battles doesn't make you broken it makes you clean."