There’s a strange feeling that often accompanies the end of a relationship. Some people might tape on a various number of adjectives, but none seem as suitable as ennui. It’s origins are probably French. It’s a feeling that’s hard to describe, related distantly to “annoy.” For me, it’s always carried a sense of emptiness, mixed together with part boredom and part deep melancholy. There’s also a component of boredom—some sense of dread for passing time with nothing to fill it with. Nothing to latch onto, as the minutes tick away. Always, there’s a million things to do. Homework, books, essays, repeat. Suddenly everyone seems to be busy. People aren’t as willing to do things as much as they were before. They’d rather sleep. Or eat. Or more commonly, not eat. Then there’s thoughts of him. Thoughts that creep into my brain before I realize, and suddenly I feel a lump in my throat and I have no idea why—like an allergic reaction, almost. It’s as sudden as one. Something that you know is coming, but only vaguely, when all of a sudden, it hits but there’s no EpiPen for this. Everyone tells me it’s a matter of time. I suppose it’s just the way I’ve always been. Like a magnet, I’m drawn to people and hold on for dear life, but sometimes they let go and the magnetism is left without a target and I’m feeling nothing and too much all at the same time. Now everything he says or doesn’t say and every look he does or doesn’t shoot in my direction, and the invitations that I can’t pinpoint the motives of and the occasional periods of being okay are all over the place. My thoughts are racing all the time. They are everywhere, scattered across the walls of my mind, looking, searching, hoping for a rest stop. I want to feel beautiful. I want to be beautiful. I want people to do double-takes and stare as I walk past, even if their gazes only linger for a second or two. I want to be the girl that he talks about during dinner, the “very pretty” one. It’s always said matter-of-factly, as if it wasn’t an opinion but something inarguably true, that she, whoever it is that he’s talking about that, is universally regarded to be pretty. At least, to me it is because that’s his opinion and to me that matters too much to be okay. I flinch a little whenever he so much as mentions another girl or says the word “girlfriend,” and it’s like a little stab at me because he’s always said he doesn’t want a relationship. But then again, could it be just not with me? That little shred of paranoid thought will dig deep into my skin and my insides will curl with unpleasantness and I won’t be able to move past this morose thought, only push it deeper until hopefully I won’t feel it anymore. I’m looking outside and it’s dark. It’s quiet.
