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Thank you for breaking up with me. 

And I mean that in the most sincere, non-sarcastic way. We both knew you would have to be the one to do it. I certainly would never have done it. I was so in love with you, I couldn’t even see straight. But you took the step that needed to be taken (even though it smashed my heart into a million pieces). 

I remember getting the text from you; it was in the morning, and I was on a bus with my church group. Reading that you no longer loved me shook me to the core. It’s a text I will never forget.

You might not have done it how I would have preferred, but it needed to be done.

How could we go from being so in love one day to breaking up over text the next? I will never know.

Something about that text absorbed into my identity; I viewed myself as unlovable for a while. I was 100 percent convinced I was unworthy of love or attention. I withdrew from family and friends and dove into insolation. I searched for comfort at the bottom of food containers. And every time I reached the bottom, I realized the hole could not be filled that way.

I started to go down the rabbit hole of shame and lost track of the things I loved. It took sitting with my thoughts and, quite frankly, the acid reflux from all the food for me to realize I didn’t want to be in this place anymore. 

I sought validation everywhere, but it was mostly dependent on whether or not men liked me. Ironically, I was seeking someone to validate me so much that I ended up attracting no one. 

I realized that I had no idea how to process a breakup. It was my first one, so I started to Google how to get over an ex. I read tons of articles, and they all came back to one theme: a breakup is a time, more than any other time, to work on yourself. 

So I started my personal development journey. I started listening to podcasts, diving into my limiting beliefs, and going to events. I learned that if you have to force a relationship, it is genuinely not meant to be. I am so thankful to my ex-boyfriend for doing what I couldn’t. 

If I were still in that relationship, I wouldn’t have the life I have now. Everything happens for a reason, even if you do not agree with it at that exact moment. As a girl who has been single for seven years, if there’s one thing I realized, it is that being single is the sh*t! It is the time when you get to discover what sets your soul on fire. 

If you’ve been dumped, take that time to decide what life you want to create (and then you can choose what kind of partner you want in it). And don’t settle for anyone. 

It’s better to be single than settle.