When the Whole World Breaks With You

Many Break-Ups are Tough, But Some are All-Encompassing

There’s a particular type of pain that comes with entirety.

Losing everything we have is devastating in its own right, but there is, perhaps a mercy in the absence. There’s a different, inescapable relentlessness when a relationship ends and everything that came about as a result of that relationship is all still there.

When you’ve only ever experienced a certain world through the lens of that former relationship — and only ever expected to — seeing it any other way can seem nearly impossible.

We weren’t together when she moved to the city. I was not a part of her life at the time, not a part of the decision, not a part of her considerations, first impressions, or experiences. When I moved to be near her months later, it was still new enough to her to be interesting, but she’d already known it without me.

I moved with the understanding that things between us may not work out. I had been ready to move anyway, and I was truly enamored with the city to which she moved. It was my decision, and I knew that I might have to live with that alone, but it would be dishonest to say it had nothing to do with her. It never would have occurred to me to consider…