What no one ever tells you about break-ups

• Your cat will become your best friend, even though he has ignored you for 3 years. (He will also stretch out and take up that part of the bed you were so excited about finally using). 
• Phil Collins gets you.
• Facebook is to be avoided, especially around holidays.
• No one treats you differently, even though you're vulnerable and half a human and  you feel they should.
• You'll experiment in drugs. As in, get bored one night and go into the cupboard where the pill jar with the weed from last year's flood is and roll a joint. Then stare at it for an hour. Then smoke it and get weird and fall asleep on the couch. 
• You'll learn to hate the word single. 
• Texting whilst single, to virtual strangers, is a communication that will never be okay. When a nice enough person starts lol'ing and wink smiley-facing everything, you'll curse texting in a way you never have.
• You'll miss your old life.
• You'll wonder what his family is doing on holidays. 
• If you press on a photo on instagram, it likes it. Even if the person is a stranger you're not supposed to know exists. 
• Some mornings there will be a phantom-boyfriend beside you, for a very long time, before you realize he's not actually there.
• He is still out there, living, and you aren't allowed to know what he's doing anymore.
• Cooking for one will become a daily reminder of your failed relationship. You may: buy a juicer, prepare elaborate meals you never would have otherwise made using ingredients you otherwise never would have heard of, make a batch of cookies after drinking a bottle of wine with the stand-mixer his mom got you for Christmas, spend most of your workday distracted and not participating because you're meal-planning in your head. But mostly, when all is said and done, it doesn't distract from the fact that you are sitting there, in a quiet house, eating alone.
• Your emergency contact is your mom again.