Everything After

This is everything after you have loved and lost. Everything after that first heartbreak; the one the sends your heart plummetting to your stomach, that tightens your chest in against your ribcage and threatens to stop your breathing altogether, that fills your head with sadness like a toxic gas, the one that shakes up your reality and breaks everything you once knew into unrecognizable pieces. Everything after that first recovery; the long nights spent crying until you had no tears left to cry and only dry heavy sobs in your throat, the countless rants to friends, family, even strangers in any attempt to sort things out for yourself in your own jumbled up mind, and the long stretch of time that feels like it will never end, it will never pass, it will always hurt... but it doesn't. One day, it stopped. And here I am now. And I still think of it, at least once a day, but I know there will be a day that not a thought crosses my mind. And so I have so much else to do with my life. I want to better myself. I want to write. I want to become involved. I want to get good grades. I want to be a good person. I want to go to the beach. I want to travel. I want to be with my family and best friends. I want to have adventures and make memories. I am finally the girl I fell in love with being again, the one I found at age 16. I can't wait to see where life takes us.