Spend every moment consciously putting on an air of nonchalance and carefully practised joie de vivre. live in perpetual fear of the sense of failure that threatens to fill you should anyone find out that this deliberately cultivated devil-may-care-ness is truly the most fragile thing about you. that it's all in the interests of recognizing that no one wants to hear about your failed love story any more a year later, not even the object of all your unrelenting, self-effacing, single minded, heart-mind-body-soul consuming love. realize that you have not just beat the proverbial dead horse, but dragged it around in hopes that one fine day it'll suddenly sit up again and your heart will mend. act like it doesn't matter that the sting of what-was-supposed-to-be an anniversary hits you again and again, act like you don't remember what he said and did on this particular date at that particular time when he left you.

laugh it off now because it seems like the graceful thing to do, and what are you if not graceful about these things? laugh it off as your friends tell you he doesn't deserve you, that he wasn't ever worth it. that no one who loves you will put you through that kind of hell. laugh it all off, hear yourself change the topic because fuck your life if he was (or rather wasn't) all of those things, then why do you still talk/think/dream about him? 

go back repeatedly to the moment when you sat in front of your shrink and cried before words came out of your mouth, and cried for an hour, and the second of your 9-free-appointments was when you actually began your story. go back to those mornings when you would walk out of counselling services feeling hopeful maybe for a day until your resolve crumbled. when on some days you felt like you were living only because there were too many people who loved you and you couldn't let them down. notice you still feel like that a lot of the time, and then remember his disdain for you when you told him that all you wanted was to wake up next to him for the rest of your life. big mistake. he took your earnest love for lack of ambition.  

and now? even now, letting go is not what you've done, not what you're doing. if there are words for this, for what you are doing, you'd like to know them. how do you articulate the deep, cloud-like sadness that engulfs you, when you have to make sure your face doesn't betray any sign of what is going on in your head? how do you stem the grief that comes from having tried it all, and giving up because there is nothing left to say or do beyond whatever you did? how do you move on from living a life where everyday is washing over you, and it's all the same. here's a secret: even when you've convinced yourself that it wasn't because you weren't good enough, it doesn't matter. nothing cuts deeper than refraining from sending a message because an automatic light goes off in your head and again and again and again it flashes "what's the point?"

laugh at yourself when people tell you you're mature, wise beyond your years, when you hear those platitudes as you impart your wisdom about their failed romances. laugh, because you can't tell them you wouldn't wish your broken heart on anyone. because no one is supposed to know it's still as broken as it was that day when he walked away from you.

laugh because there are bigger problems in the world, but you, you are stuck on the only problem that matters to you: him.