Twenty-three.

The breakup of all breakups changed my relationship with grief.

After a breakup, it's recommended that you throw yourself into a flurry of new activities: books, music, film, sports, networking, anything that might introduce you to new people or occupy your mind. The idea is to give your brain something new to do, instead of spending all your time agonizing.

Intuitively, I knew that it's sound advice. I dragged myself to the gym every day because I wanted to stimulate the production of endorphins; I didn't notice a tangible difference afterwards, but it did manage to burn off some of the nervous energy that my anxiety generated for me. I was an outdoor volleyball enthusiast for the summer and I went on a couple of dates, but I was so anxious. There was only one person in the world I wanted to see, and he was resolute about not allowing me to make amends.

Immediately preceding my separation from Henry, my breakup with Jun was, in contrast, a much more boring affair. I spent my time playing video games (Supergiant's Hades) and reading books (Beitong's Beijing Comrades), and a boy I dated to whom I recommended Beijing Comrades picked up the very same digital copy after I returned mine to the New York Public Library system. That was, altogether, an unremarkable breakup.

I suppose the difference is that I was ready to leave my relationship with Jun, whereas I was forcibly parted from Henry. On one hand, I knew I needed to accept that he'd chosen to exit my life; on the other, I wanted to believe that there was still hope for reconciliation. That dissonance was the clear source of my emotional turmoil, and it was how my relationship with grief changed.

Of the few books I was able to digest at that point in time, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous felt pronounced as I parsed my loss. Ocean Vuong posits that grief is the final expression of love, one that we carry with us for the rest of our life, but I didn't want to carry my love for Henry forever. I remember thinking that such would feel more like a curse. Although I grieved and grieved and grieved, my rational side hoped that I wouldn't do so forever—not just because he didn't deserve it, my outpouring of love for him and that I would bear it forever, but also because I didn't think I deserved it, to obsess over what I'd lost when there remained an entire universe out there for me to gain. I'd loved him, I did, but I still loved me, too, and I didn't want to keep punishing myself for the mistakes I'd made that had resulted in my loss. Of course, in that aforementioned passage, Ocean wrote not about losing romantic love but about losing his mother, about someone who'd loved him unconditionally, and so I supposed that such grief wasn't what I was feeling. Henry obviously hadn't loved me with the same gravity. In that case, the future, however dim, however gray, still seemed to be bright.

Before my breakup, I wasn't an anxious person. I'd only ever had three panic attacks prior to that, adding up to once every half-decade or so, and I hardly ever cried. Even when I was at my deepest nadir, when I contemplated ending my life with full seriousness and planned out a final goodbye to take place by age twenty, I shed no tears. Back then, my depression wasn't sad—it was cold, unfeeling. That, too, changed with Henry's departure.

2022 was also the year that saw the release of Everything Everywhere All At Once, the surprise box office juggernaut that slowly chugged its way to an Academy Awards sweep. Much ballyhoo was made about its success as an Asian-led casting success story, but I had long anticipated the film's release for a more specific reason: Michelle Yeoh, whose filmography is as action-packed as it is diverse. Like so many others, I'd loved her emotive gravitas in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Crazy Rich Asians, and I'd wanted to see her flex her metaphorical chops as soon as I'd read the pre-release synopses of Everything Everywhere All At Once, which had promised to be a tour de force of a performance. Although she is of Han Chinese ancestry, her Malaysian upbringing connected her via regional proximity to Henry, who was Malay Singaporean and with whom I had planned to watch the film upon its premiere. When he and I broke up, some of the lingering affection I had for him was undoubtedly transferred to the film.

I watched Everything Everywhere All At Once at least eight times that summer. I was never one to cry from watching a movie, but I was already broken and the film poked at my sorest spots. Michelle's portrayal of an immigrant Chinese mother who learns to accept her gay child, culminating in her final monologue to Stephanie Hsu—I couldn't take it.

You never call me even though we have a family plan, and it's free. You only visit when you need something. And, you got a tattoo and I don't care if it's supposed to represent our family. You know I hate tattoos. And, of all the places I could be, why would I want to be here with you? Yes, you're right. It doesn't make sense. Maybe it's like you said. Maybe there is something out there, some new discovery that will make us feel like even smaller pieces of shit, something that explains why you still went looking for me through all of this noise, and why, no matter what, I still want to be here with you.

I will always, always, want to be here with you.

Those words, the denouement, weren't just the words I knew I would never hear from my own mother (or father, for good measure). Those were the words I wanted to say, had said, to Henry when I did everything I could to repair our relationship. Those were the words I had wanted him to say to me, because I knew that love isn't just a spark of chemistry but also an interminable series of choices to be together against all odds. No matter what, I wanted to be with him, but he didn't want to be with me. I remember my third time seeing the film with my dear friend Eleanor, who lovingly interrupted her own first viewing of the movie to run out of the theatre and fetch me some napkins because I had begun bawling at those very words.

Repeat viewings imparted upon me that I was still liable to burst into tears at any time, still in my precarious emotional state, because I still wasn't over losing not just him but also the sense of security I had derived from believing that he'd loved me, unconditionally, and because I still blamed myself for screwing it all up. Despite it taking two to tango, I faulted myself because I knew I was the more emotionally intuitive partner, and it was my responsibility to manage that facet of our relationship if I wanted it because I was better at it, at least until he caught up to speed. I'd lost the unconditional love I'd only ever felt before from less than a handful of lovers and never my parents, and it screwed with my head and maybe it was purely a matter of psychology and maybe the brain wants what it can't have, but it was all my fault nonetheless. He had every opportunity to right his own wrongs, to choose me as I'd chosen him, and—when it mattered most—he didn't. That made me feel like shit—to know that I'd hurt him so badly that he, despite however much he'd supposedly loved me, chose to walk away.

All this time later, I still have his phone number memorized. It's a six-four-six number that has me blocked, a sequence of ten integers that I wish never came into my life, whose consequence is that I've been irrevocably changed, forever. It was ironic to me that he'd so loved Kelly Clarkson, who has staked her career upon songs about emotional honesty, because he was an emotional coward who was pathologically incapable of confronting any heartfelt issues with seriousness. But, my Venus is in Aries and I'm a stubborn partner, and it would never have worked out if he wasn't as obstinately committed, and he wasn't. Regardless of how badly I wished that it was him, it wasn't.

I remember reading that grief doesn't dissipate as you progress; rather, the rest of your life enlarges. The grief remains, but it is less and less prominent as your life moves on because there are more material realities in front of you, and eventually you forget to acknowledge the grief. I remember cursing myself for waking up yet again with him as my first waking thought, begging myself to fast-forward to the reality where that no longer occurred. I remember wondering whether I'd default to thinking about him because misery was a familiar comfort, whether I was squeezing out whatever leftover dopamine remained from seeing him in my mind's eye, and trying desperately to convince myself to source my endorphins elsewhere. I remember that existence being torturous, wrought. I remember holding onto the shred of self-worth I had left, the gentle voice in my head that was patient with me as I sobbed, telling me that this, too, would pass, and that, no matter what, I would always be here for myself. I would always, always, want to be here for myself.

My relationship with grief changed, but I like to think that it isn't so bad. Loss taught me to be grateful for the people who choose to stay all the more. I don't have Henry anymore, but I do have a Substack to show for it.