I'm With Muriel

In a week, it will be 2 years since I broke up with my ex-boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Two years. I. A week from now: the saddest and happiest day. We both of us needed to be unshackled from what we'd become: misery in a king-sized bed.

It is hard to think of me as someone with an ex. Mainly because I feel fresh as a daisy. I've had my heart broken and I've grown stronger. I lost myself in that relationship a little, I'm ashamed to say. But I didn't lose that core sense of playfulness, or my vulnerability, or the ability to transform. In the immortal words of Mariel Heslop, "I'm a New Person!"







The night I broke up with Brandon: The relief I felt when I said we needed to break up. There: the bridge had been washed out, the snow finally broke the icy branch upon which it had laid for too long. The kind of relief that breaks your heart.

His exact words, my boyfriend of five years: "Oh. Ok. Well, have a nice life."

It has been a nice life. I've learned to live in the silence Brandon gifted me. It hasn't been easy, to live in such quiet, and at times I thought I would not survive it. In the immortal words of Muriel Heslop:

"When I lived in Porpoise Spit, I used to sit in my room for hours and listen to ABBA songs. But since I've met you and moved to Sydney, I haven't listened to one Abba song. That's because my life is as good as an Abba song. It's as good as Dancing Queen."