Some breakups are easy to brush off. Other breakups are painful. For me, the most difficult breakup I’ve gone through was with my ex-boyfriend Jeremy. I couldn’t stop texting him. I thought I might never be free of him. But it turns out that the only way I could really move forward was to throw my phone into the ghostly nest of haunted ravens out behind my house.
After the breakup, I cut Jeremy out of my life in every way I knew how: I unfollowed his dog’s Instagram, found a new Target to frequent far away from his apartment, and finally moved into my own place on the other side of town where the veil between this world and the next is thinnest. But there was one part of our relationship that felt impossible to let go: texting. Over and over, I would swear that Jeremy was out of my life and I’d promise myself that I’d never contact him again. Then, in a moment of weakness or after too many wine coolers, I would find my hand reaching for the familiar comfort of my phone, and Jeremy’s voice carried to me in small white letters.
Anyone who has gone through a breakup knows that this is a tough habit to stop. I wanted desperately to be independent, yet night after night I texted Jeremy “u up?” “how r u?” “do u know anyone who can end the ominous cacophony coming from my backyard???” I finally found a solution. I threw my phone into the nest of ghostly ravens. “I want to be free!” I cried, and the screeching of long-dead ravens mixed with my cries to make an awful sound: “I want to be free!” we cried. “Also, Jeremy sucked! He wasn’t really all that great.”
Not only did it stop me from texting Jeremy, it seemed to really please the ravens.
Since that day, I’ve felt liberated. Texting Jeremy, having an open line of communication, felt like walking around with a weight on my chest. Now, with my phone safely floating in a nest of dead birds, I feel free. I finally cut Jeremy out of my life, and all it took was throwing my phone into that misty cloud of ravens of which I still have no real explanation for, but am still really grateful it came at such a difficult time in my life.
