When I was a little girl, I held fast to the belief that I had a prince out there waiting for me. I built up many fictitious scenarios in my head that were virtually impossible for any human to live up to. I knew that he was out there, somewhere. I just had to hold out hope.   

When I was in middle school, I had my first heart break. I was on-and-off with a young man whom I believed I loved and because I was in middle school I thought I knew everything; even what love was. Now, this is not to say that when my two year relationship with this boy ended that my heart was not severely broken, but I did not understand what the emotions or the crushingly achy feeling in my chest was. It was foreign to me, so I cried and got over it. On to the next.      

Then came my high school sweetheart. He was funny, charismatic, charming, and handsome. I loved him dearly, and love him still in a more friendly way. We lasted two and a half years, and when we broke up I thought my heart was going to rip out of my chest. I had this awful pit in my stomach that wouldn’t go away -- it was like my body was rebelling against our break up.     

Eventually, I got over that and ended up dating my next long-term boyfriend through the end of high school and for the entirety of the first semester of my college career. He was kind, brilliant, lovable, hilarious, and he made me happy. We became so transfixed with each other that I ended up losing who I was because I kept trying to change myself in order to make the relationship work. This ended up destroying us because we became, fundamentally, unhappy. When we ended, my heart felt like it was turned upside down, put through a cheese-grater, run over by a semi-truck, soaked in a pot of boiling lava, thrust back into my chest and beaten with a metal baseball bat.      

That might have been slight over-exaggeration, but at the time that is what it felt like. I did not know what to do. I sent him countless Facebook messages asking what happened, constantly berated my friends with questions and accusations as to why things did not work out, and sunk into a depression so deep that I found it hard to look into a mirror.      

It was at this point that my father jerked me off of my seemingly permanent lounge-spot on our living room couch and told me that time would heal me. Laughter, friends, love, hobbies, movies, joy -- all of these things would come flooding back into my life if I let it. I looked at him like he had just told me that aliens had landed in our backyard and built a treehouse. 

Then a miraculous thing happened. As the weeks went by, I actually started to laugh. I started to go out with friends and eat regular, non-chocolate foods. I had color back in my cheeks, and I was able to appreciate the sunlight shining through my bedroom window. It was like my old self was finally starting to take control of my body and soul again and happiness did not seem so impossible. A few months passed, and slowly, but surely, I rebuilt myself from the ground up. I found my footing, found my friends and hobbies, and my obnoxiously loud laughter returned in its full, boisterous force. Then, I met my next would-be boyfriend.      

We ended up dating for some months, and I fell in love. Make fun of me all you want, but I don’t think there is a true timestamp on when someone can and can’t fall in love. If you meet the right person, it is like your body has a chemical response that screams, “Yes! I finally found you!” 

Our relationship eventually crumbled and an interesting thing happened: my life did not end. My best friend was there the night of the break up, and she held me as I sobbed nasty, gasping tears and declared that I hated the male gender; but, the next morning I woke up feeling a sense of numbness. It was like my body and mind had recognized that a stage in my life was over. That I was moving on and starting a new chapter. I did not cry for a long time after that. It took months before I cried over him again, and that is just because he sent an ambiguous text message that made me miss him.    

I used to always put the bulk of the break-up blame on myself. I kept going through scenario after scenario on how I could have been better, done something to make a fight resolve more quickly, or simply just been a better person. The truth is, I kept making out these men in my life to be so hopelessly perfect – like my fictitious Prince – that everything must have been my fault. In reality, this was not true. Some relationships just are not meant to work, and that is okay.     

My point is that everyone goes through stages of heartbreak. Whether that heartbreak wrecks you to your core, sears you with numbness, makes your body achy and your will to accomplish daily tasks virtually non-existent, or simply just makes you cry -- you are not alone.  However, you can’t blame yourself like I did. Sometimes relationships fail because of myriad reasons, but that is no excuse to depreciate yourself and devalue who you are as a person. Sometimes two people are meant to cross paths in life, learn lessons from one-another, and move on.    

Heartbreak slowly ebbs over time. I know so many people going through what I went through, and we all agree on the same inarguable fact -- each day gets a little bit easier. It gets easier to laugh. It gets easier to breathe without that crushingly heavy weight on your chest that seems to follow a rough heartbreak. You will be okay.     

Whoever you, please know that you are loved and you are not alone. Heartbreak happens to the very best of us.