Two Month Checkup

Imagine that you were born with one arm. When you're young, everyone your age has only one arm, and you don't really consider the possibility of needing more than one arm, but as you enter adulthood, suddenly people around you start sprouting second arms left and right. You patiently wait your turn, but it never seems to come. People younger than you are getting their second arms. People you babysat years ago are getting their second arms. You start to wonder what you possibly could have done wrong for them to get their second arm before you.

Eventually, you learn a bit of patience and focus on your one arm. You realize that you are able to function quite well with just the one arm. Sure, a second arm would be great, but that's no reason to look down upon yourself for only having one arm. You frame your life around making the most of your one arm, rather than waiting around for life to start with a second arm.

Then one day, you find yourself with a second arm, and it's everything you'd hoped it would be. You finally have what you've wanted for so long. Life just seems so much greater with that second arm. You find that there's so much out there you were missing with just one arm. Everything is wonderful when you have a second arm. You love having two arms. You hope that you have two arms forever.

Sadly, all too soon you find yourself back to just one arm. At first, it's miserable. How can you be expected to go back to one arm after knowing how great it is to have a second arm? This must be some kind of mistake. There's a period of denial, when you think that maybe your second arm will come back, followed by the painful realization that you really are back to only one arm. You have this horrible, haunting ache where your arm used to be. You watch movies celebrating second arms and spend night after night crying as you mourn the loss of something you waited for your entire life.

After a while, even though you didn't think it was possible, you start to feel a little better. Instead of spending all your time moaning and groaning because you lost your second arm, you start to remember that life was pretty great with just the one arm. You're mostly not bitter, at least you almost never want to punch cuddling couples. You no longer have to fight tears during marriage and family lessons at church. You still have memories pop up or dreams about the lost arm, but they no longer control your day and your attitude. You're okay, mostly.

That's pretty much how I feel right now. To wrap things up, I'd like to share the phases of my breakup, illustrated by Christina Perri songs. These are the songs I listened to and identified with before, immediately after, and two months after the breakup.