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Over the course of the last few months, pretty much everything in my life has been turned upside down. To my surprise, such huge external changes haven’t caused internal changes of comparable magnitude: in fact, I feel like I haven’t changed at all.

I’m still trying to figure out whether this is a good or a bad thing.

Even though it’s been a while, every now and then somebody asks me «How’s your girlfriend?», to which I usually reply with something along the lines of «She’s doing fine. Also, she’s not my girlfriend anymore». Cue embarassed faces.

(As an aside, what’s the matter with you people? You can’t possibly think that our breaking up months ago was a consequence of you asking that question now, can you? If anything, you’re showing that you care about the person you’re talking to, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.)

When asked about the reason behind the split, I stare back at them with hollow eyes and answer that, honestly, I don’t know what to answer.

In a way, I wish she had just told me that she had met this great, good looking, kind and caring Irish guy and that, well, you know how this kind of things work. It would have been hard to swallow, but perfectly understandable as far as logic goes.

Instead, she told me that while she still cared about me, she needed time alone: which might well be girl–talk for all of the above, as far as I know. Even after all this, though, I still believe she wouldn’t be able to lie to me. Not like that.

Delusional? Probably. Too dense to see the reason why she broke up with me, a reason so obvious it would look plain as day to anybody else? Also very likely. Still thinking about her all the time, still hoping that she will change her mind? Absolutely.

Walk until your feet and legs are sore. Don’t pick a destination, just wander around for a while; when you start recognizing the buildings in front of you, that’s the perfect time to turn around and start walking in the opposite direction.

This is not your town, and even though you’re going to live here for the foreseeable future, you will never stop feeling like a stranger. It’s not the city’s fault, either; it’s just that you can’t seem to shake off the feeling that you belong somewhere else. Maybe you really do.

Keep walking until you are completely lost. It might take a while to get back home, but it doesn’t really matter: it’s not like you’ll have much to do once you’re there; it’s not like there will be someone waiting for you.

It’s hard to believe it’s been little more than a week. I feel as if months, if not years, have passed – even though the calendar hanging on the wall clearly disagrees with me.

When you’re looking forward to something time seems to go by at a slower pace, everyone knows that; apparently the same thing happens when you suddenly find yourself with nothing to look forward to.

After your heart has stopped beating you can still get up in the morning, drive your car to work and make your way through an eight hour shift; you can still watch lame American animated cartoons from the 80s, go out for a drink with your friends on a Saturday night, eat pizza for lunch and spend a good chunk of your time performing mundane tasks; you can still, of course, drink hot green tea in the evening, blame somebody else for your mistakes, laugh to mediocre jokes and enjoy the comforting warmth of your bed.

Believe me, none of the things you do during an average day requires your heart to be in working order: your body already knows pretty much everything there is to know, and can figure out the missing bits just fine. Most of the people you meet on the street have had their heart broken ages ago, yet they can sell newspapers or ask for spare change like they used to. If you had known them from a very long time, maybe you could tell that something has changed, but I wouldn’t blame you if you couldn’t: it’s just really hard to notice.

In the end, sad as it is, after your heart has stopped beating life just goes on.