an ode to first heartbreak
Credit: Esme Kemp
By Sophie Boyes
‘Soph, are you sure you’re happy?’, my cousin asked as I sobbed down the phone on our fifth consecutive emergency call that week.
‘No no seriously, I’m literally so happy’, I assured her through my tears. Somewhere, carefully buried beneath layers of pride and 21-year-old naivety, I knew that my 18 month relationship was unravelling at the seams. And there was nothing I could do about it.
Cut to two weeks later, with me on the floor of my one metre-squared bathroom in the slightly dilapidated room the French letting agency had labelled a ‘stylish studio’, listening to Professor Green’s ‘never be a right time’ on repeat. What I had invariably refused to face up to for the previous two months had surfaced: the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with had dumped me.
It was not the Oscar-worthy scene I had been choreographing in my mind, both of us in floods of desperate tears at the tragic inevitability of our parting, but rather a fifteen-minute phone call during which he offered very little explanation. For weeks afterwards I was consumed by deep analysis of what he might have meant when he said he didn’t know why, but he just didn’t really want to visit me during his week off.
Heartbreak at 21 is never an easy thing to deal with; for me, having moved abroad for University, it felt like the very axis upon which the earth stood had pitched me into a nosedive towards despair. There is not much you can do during the first few weeks, except exist in whatever state you can. Your friends won’t mind if they are indeed good friends. They will rally round you, accepting that you will be some kind of silent, sad, recluse until you regain a semblance of emotional stability.
I sat through three-hour lectures on the European Union’s fiscal policy, silent tears streaming down my face. I met a boy named Pascal who had, much to his delight I’m sure, been paired with me for a project, only to find I would spend most of our preparation sessions crying. I passed whole afternoons doing nothing but texting my cousin a series of sad faced emojis. I imagined I was in the war of my life and embodied the subject of every sad song released in 2017.
Two months later, armed with a new statement red coat and drastic haircut, I was ready to pick myself back up. I was like a butterfly bursting from its cocoon. I put time and energy into myself, I threw myself into my life in France, I gave my all to new friendships, and built the foundations of the woman I am today.
Break-ups will teach you more than you thought you could ever learn about yourself, about your resilience. In the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson, ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’
Trust me, better things, better opportunities, and the relationships that you really deserve will come your way.
So, my advice is: let yourself grieve. It’s a truly awful thing to experience, and it will make you want to do nothing but be sad for weeks. So do it. For as long as you need. Then pick yourself back up, purchase your proverbial red coat, do something drastic to your hair. And then start living again. It’s not an easy ride, and sadly there is no one thing that will make it all okay, but it will be one of the best and most defining moments in your life.
