Eating ice cream, watching sad movies and crying with your roommate, laying in bed, trying to breathe, yet crying yourself to sleep. You wake up dreading the day, so much time to fill, creating a new routine, a new lifestyle, a new happy. It’s gut wrenching, miserable. Sometimes your heart breaks and you feel like your world is crumbling down around you. You are not sure what to hold on to. You know it will get better, but you want it to get better right now. To feel like you can breathe on your own. To know that you are strong and independent and can fill the void that is in your life.

You try and find the flaws in your past situation, something to drive your anger and help you get through the day, but sometimes there are none. Sometimes, life just hurts and there is nothing you can do about it. When you lose something you love it is not fair, it is not easy, you do everything you can to rationalize, to make yourself feel better, but sometimes a box of tissues later, you still do not know how to be okay.

You just have to take one moment at a time, one breath at a time. It can be hard to think, to focus, to go on with life and get things done. Your mind is cluttered and things just do not seem important anymore. That test you had to study for, seems impossible, appointments escape you, your brain feels like a mess.

Your warm comfy bed seems to be the only thing that feels right and normal anymore. Laying in bed is the only thing you can think of during the day. Tea, blankets, pajamas, friends that love you are all that you want.

The gut wrenching pain of loss sends you for a whirlwind, nothing feels normal anymore. The only thing you can do is be true to yourself. Get up and take one breath at a time. Do something that you do not normally let yourself do. Treat yourself, take a bath, buy a new outfit, eat ice cream, splurge. Express yourself in ways that you do not normally give yourself the luxury of doing.

Pain is a part of life. Sometimes your heart breaks and your life feels like a mess. Slowly picking up the pieces and putting yourself back together is the hardest thing sometimes but it does get better. You just have to look for the little things that make you happy. Look for the break in the clouds. The storm cannot go on forever. The clouds will eventually run out of rain.

Let yourself feel pain and then slowly allow yourself to move on. Pick up a hobby, do something to fill that extra time you find yourself with. Shake up your routine, do fun things. Lean on your other friends. Schedule dates with them. Fill your time, do not let yourself sit by yourself.

Be true to yourself, love yourself and know that you are worth great things, maybe things did not work out the way you wanted, but that does not mean your future is bleak. The future is bright and beautiful full of possibilities. Focus on what could be, not what should have been.