Recovering from a heartbreak is like recovering from a long, excruciating fever. She was left weak, trembling, shivering and vulnerable. She needed nourishment and warmth, company and healthy conversations. The lucky ones find those elements of complete recovery. Most, however, are left lifting their own selves up from misery, holding on to walls for support and reaching out to that lone glass of water. Eventually, she regained her health, not from physical nourishment but from taking strict control over her mental wellbeing. She talked to herself and consoled herself. She made herself laugh. She made herself cry, too, but for the better.

Recovering from a heartbreak is like waking up from a fever in a daze, hot and clammy with sweat, disoriented and bleary-eyed. Life was unclear but in order to stay alive, she focused her retinas in a mental effort equally physical in nature as it would be if she were to take her fingers and move her eyeballs around.

Recovering from a heartbreak is not easy. For it takes time, it takes pain and it takes courage to face up, to own up, to square up. She took the time, she bore the pain, she mustered the courage: she squared the hell up.

About a hundred and twenty eight days later, she reclaimed herself.