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You’re not over it. You know because the dread creeps into your coffee every morning. Between that time of residual slumber and utter wakefulness, your reverie is vulnerable. You slip back to the delicious way his laughter sounds when you’re the one telling a joke. You return to those moments when he speaks your name and how you relish the syllables when they roll out of his tongue.

     It doesn’t help matters that you commute to work. Thirty minutes on a quiet road through a city that’s just about to wake up. That’s half an hour of dodging his ghost. Half an hour of actively rejecting reminiscence. How can the early morning sunlight rescue you from the memory of how the morning shines on his naked skin? That weekend in that cabin, when you swore you could write a manuscript, bible-thick, only by scribing those two days.

     Work is not a good enough distraction. You overhear something, and you drift back for a second to the first time you kissed. You could write novels about that kiss alone. And through all these, the tightness in your gut reminds you that you are doing this ‘moving on’ deal wrong. The rigidity underneath your chest reminds you that ‘letting go’ is something you’re not cut out for.

     It’s worse in the afternoon, too, on your way back to work. You miss the feeling of looking forward to seeing someone, and knowing that someone feels the same way. Trite and ridiculous. But maybe you could ask your broken-toothed neighbor to meet you at your door at 5 pm everyday and tell you about her heartbreaks. You could compare notes and maybe she has the answer. Maybe that’s the past you can both dine on, and when you look at the mini-zoo inside her apartment, maybe you should consider buying a pet to downplay the blow of your future.

     You laugh. You watch your favorite shows. Indulge in a movie marathon or a book serial about serendipity and soulmates. You could eat ice cream and convince yourself that your salvation is somewhere inside the chocolates. You could make dinner and lay it exquisitely, restaurant-style to coddle yourself.

     But don’t you just hate it that everytime you laugh, you remember his wit? That in the middle of your sitcom you remember how he used to protest, but always with an arm around your shoulder? That you used to argue about which movies to watch and always compromise with a nuzzle? That there is no one to distract you from your reading by seductively massaging your feet? That any presentation of dinner reminds you of how you used to make a mess of it, decide to skip it and instead move to the bedroom after the wine? Or the floor. Or anywhere that could support your limbs.

     You begin to think that moving on just means giving up. That letting go just means discarding. You discard every hour you had spent together, every memory you had built, every chemical you had burnt. You give up on doing this all over again with another man and decide to spare yourself the exhaustion. But then a voice inside you cuts the silence in half. Letting go is freedom. Moving on is trying to meet the right one.

     So yes, you’re not over it. Doesn’t matter what anyone else tells you. Nobody is ever really over it. Every breakup shatters a bit of your soul. Each one takes a vein from your heart. That way you’re never the same forever. Your soul will feel loose, your heart will bleed more profusely.

     It sucks, doesn’t it? Yet you want to fall in love again.

     No. You’re not over it.