I wake up still drunk, stumbling around a dirty house scattered with bedding and empty beer cans. The rising is gradual - I, before the sun, the others one by one after me. I tiptoe around, stepping over and tripping over bodies, unapologetic yet far louder than I mean to be. People begin to stir. I heat the stove top, lay bacon in a skillet, tie a vintage apron around my neck, and through half closed eyes begin preparing breakfast. A breakfast I used to cook for you when I would crawl out of my side of the bed hours before you even stirred, giving you something good to wake up to, wanting to bring you the happiness you always brought me. I stare into the sizzling pan, letting my mind wander, missing the way you would sneak up behind me and bury your face in my neck, running your fingertips down my shoulder. Now there is nothing but silence. Nothing but emptiness, a vacancy I forgot needed to ever be filled.

An hour later, we sit on the floor. A small feast laid out before us. We eat in relative silence, soft strains of an old Taylor Swift album floating over our heads. We eat until we’re full. We eat until the food is gone. Letting the tinkering of forks against glass, the crunch of bacon slowly disappearing from our plates, replace conversation, occasionally interjecting a comment or memory from the night before until there’s nothing left to say or eat. One by one they leave until it’s only my roommate and I, sitting in a pile of empty dishes and bacon grease. We sit in silence for a few moments, staring at the screens of our cellphones. At last she looks up at me, suggests that we get coffee. I agree. We wander out into the sun and climb into her car. We drive up the street and order our coffee, plug in my iPod and turn up the saddest music I can find. She drives. I roll down the windows. She opens the sun roof. We sip our coffee.

We take a gravel road out into the wilderness. It doesn’t take long for me to stop recognizing our surroundings. We drive past trees, over hills, through neighborhoods, the wind blowing our hair into giant knots, music blaring, fragments of who we are, blended words and sounds conveying our emotions. Silverstein. Lana Del Rey. Taylor Swift. The Smiths. Lydia. Bright Eyes. Dashboard Confessional. We scream along til we can’t hear anymore, til our voices and the wind and the music mix together in a soulful soundtrack and pull me through space and time into a euphoric state. I am one with the trees, the sunshine, the air. We are nowhere and everywhere, and no one is there but us.

We accelerate down a hill covered in gravel, and suddenly my heart takes over. I slip off my seatbelt, kick out of my shoes and stand on top of the seat. Slowly I push myself out through the sunroof until most of my body is outside. Wind in my hair, arms outstretched, closing my eyes and touching the atmosphere, letting the breeze fly between my fingers and over my face, I throw my head back, feeling the beat of the music. She punches the gas. Suddenly I am flying. Passing trees and fields and rural houses in a swift and beautiful blur of color. And just as quickly as it began, we reach the bottom of the hill and it is over.

We slow to a stop. I sit back down. We are in the middle of nowhere. We get out of the car. Take pictures. Enjoy the beauty around us. Then we drive on. The further we drive, the more the feelings take over. I feel drunk all over again. Drunk on music. On lyrics. On the speed of the car, the stillness of nature around us. We haven’t seen another car for several minutes. I need to feel freedom now more than ever, to achieve a deeper level of emotion. I peel off my shirt. For the rest of the hour, that’s how it is. Screaming out our lungs, occasionally laughing at an inside joke, or the inability to run our fingers through the mess that has become our hair. Snapping photos, turning up the music. Louder. Louder. Hands out the window, I, topless, reveling in the air and sunshine against my defenseless body, she, more reserved, quietly soaking up the moments as they happen. Finally she steers the car around to return us home. We have commitments to keep. We can’t do this all day.

It is over too soon, and as I pull my shirt on again and emerge from the car into the quiet September afternoon, a sigh escapes my lungs. The silence outside the car is deafening. Reality touches me again. I am still alone. Still without you. Still unsure what to believe, how to move forward, and why it all unfolded the way it did. But in those moments, as the hours rolled by, I realized I rarely had the opportunity to live before this. When you walked away, I was given the chance to be young. To drink and cry in public and embarrass the hell out of myself. To catch a man staring at my ass and not have the need to run and hide myself. To be proud of my body, of who I am without you. To bask in the beauty of nature like a wannabe hippie and dance in my bra from within a car. To taste the summer air. To smoke or drink as much as I want. To seize the moments of my youth.

Not every day will be so romantic. There will be several more normal days of being a partial adult college student. Of being stressed about bills, and going to class and falling asleep reading textbooks long before midnight. But I will never forget this day. An incremental step to my healing, to getting over you and falling in love again. But instead of another person, I spent this day falling in love with myself. With nature. With music. With my own body and my own mind. And I will spend moments for the rest of my life continuing to do these things. Letting the world make me whole.

There will be nights for stripping in a cornfield after dark and running until I can’t feel anymore. There will be nights for never going to bed, and sitting beneath the stars and laughing til I cry. There will be days of meeting strangers, enlarging my circle of friends. There will be time for dates with new guys, nervous excitement about the unknown and hoping for the best. There will be heartbreak and love and loss and beauty and pain. But today will stand out forever in my memory. Today is the beginning of my journey to acceptance. Of letting go of my socially acceptable norms and opening my heart to the beauty that surrounds me.

My wounds are still open, but they’re one step closer to being cleansed. And I will never forget this feeling. I will let it begin to define me, erasing the lines of rejection and bitterness you drew in my soul. I will grow from here. Eventually I will stop looking back. I will find my place in this world. And though there will be people beside me, it will not be in them that I make a home. I will belong to myself and the world. And I will never let that slip away again. So someday I can bury the last remains of your stain in my life, and sincerely say thank you. Thank you for leaving me to myself. Thank you for setting me free.

Thank you.