You do it like this: you get through the anniversaries, one at a time. Your first FaceTime date, his first trip out to Portland from Milwaukee, your first trip together to New York. Sometimes your brain plays tricks on you, you dream of an alternate universe where the two of you are still together, but it happens less and less often. He’s like an actor making appearances in your dreams that the writers are trying to write out slowly, making just cameos, then finally his contract running out.

In the meantime, you cautiously put your toe back into the dating waters. The last time was way too soon, it was a disaster and you weren’t ready yet, you took things too fast (dated pop-culture references not to say when having sex with someone for the first time: 1. “Brace for impact”  2. “Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?” 3. “Autobots, ROLL OUT!”). This time you decide to take it slower. It’s funny, you muse to yourself before a beer with a handsome guy you met on Tinder, I was one of those guys who used to be like “Let’s go on a date, let’s not call it “hanging out”. Now you realize that this is all the energy you have for anyone anymore. You can’t call it a date yet. Maybe you’re waiting for the thunderclap that hit you when you first saw David in person for the first time. Maybe you’re scared you’ll never feel that again for anyone.

The dating apps you’re on seem to have gotten weirder since you were single a year ago. Guys seem to match with you on Tinder constantly but won’t ever initiate conversation or message back. Guys on Scruff seem to have gotten more aggressive, more sensitive to what they think is rejection but in all likelihood is just your busy life. They mostly use the app to get more Instagram followers (me: “Hey, you’re really handsome, more face pics please?” Him: [links to his Instagram]. Me: [never speaks to him again]). Guys on OKCupid take weeks to message back. And you’ve been using that dating app “Uber” for like two years now, and all your dates drive off so angry when you try to make out with them.

Your tastes are the same, unsurprisingly: bearded guys shorter than you with dark Italian-looking features go to the head of the line, but you laugh because there’s literally no line. You’re pretty sure you feel about guys’ calves the way other people feel about women’s boobs. There must be something strangely attractive about unavailability because when you were coupled you got propositioned all the time, which you politely but firmly declined. These same men vanish now that you’re available.

You take a timer picture of your backside after you get out of the shower one day to check out your ass DON’T PRETEND YOU HAVEN’T DONE THIS TOO. You make the alarming discovery that your naked body looks like it has cargo pockets on the sides, but you force yourself to stare at the picture until you love it again. You stop eating so much bread, and reluctantly eat less pizza (my safe word is always “pepperoni”), and start losing the boyfriend/winter weight. Then you make the irrational, totally reckless decision to start running. This is weird. You throw your lanky, floppy frame down the street. You look like a car-lot wavy-arm guy with athletic shoes on. You get back to your apartment and your cat is alarmed by your flushed face, by your perspiration, he runs under the bed away from this stranger. But you feel fantastic.

You go see your therapist after work one day. You think it’s a normal session, when while recalling your time living in Chicago, you casually happen to mention your sexual assault over 15 years ago and he stops you cold, explores this. Apparently in all these sessions you’ve never mentioned this. You explain how it tangentially relates to the breakup with your recent ex. You wonder for the hundredth time if his mother is proud of the way her son leaves men. You think probably not. Your feelings for David are now a confused jumble of affection, nostalgia, and contempt. It’s a funny thing, this myth we call “catharsis”. You never get rid of all the pain, you just learn to acquire the taste for it instead. Breakups are like someone pooping in your heart.

You go on another date! He’s handsome, he’s age appropriate, he travels a lot. You find out his birth order, the names of his sisters, the toys he played with as a kid, his allergies and fears. He doesn’t ask you questions back so you do that thing you do on dates when you really like the other guy: you prattle. You tell him about your idea of Spanx, but for cats. You tell him about the recurring nightmare of the Voltron made out of your exes combining. You describe yourself as “Linus on the streets, but Lucy in the sheets”. You don’t stop, even when you see the furrow in his brow, his eyes averting from yours. “Yeah,” you stammer, “I hate the idea of organs sloshing around inside my body, you know? I wish that when you cut into me, I was just the consistency of solid bologna all the way through.” That might be where you lose him.

You part with a hug that night and spend the next couple days obsessing whether it was a good date or not. You throw caution to the wind and ask him on an actual date, you heart in  your throat as you send the text. He replies that he’s going to keep his options open for the night you propose, doesn’t suggest another night. You don’t text him again.

Spring happens in Portland, and the cherry blossoms burst open. Every year you forget how beautiful the change of seasons is in your city, how different it feels after months of hunkering down for the winter. You remember how this time last year you were falling in love for the first time in years, how you hoped it would be the last time you ever fell in love.

It wasn’t the last, but you will fall in love again, you will find that unicorn. You know this, as you walk along the Eastbank Esplanade on a brisk spring day. You are undaunted by your age, by the new lines in your face and the new grey hairs that this long winter gave you. You are unfrightened by the upcoming move to a new city. You will be excited when you see his face, your new love’s face for the first time, when you share a meal and tell stories about your families. You will feel your lover’s hand in yours when you meet him at his house (or, increasingly likely, when you pick him up from the airport). You will feel his eyes on you when you are walking together and he thinks you don’t notice him watching. You will hear his chuckle when he laughs at something funny you said, you will hear his moan in bed when you move over him. Someday, you will even hear him mutter “I love you” as he falls asleep, he will throw it out carelessly but only because he’ll already have said it a dozen times before that. You know this. This is how the story ends, isn’t it?

It is, and it does, and he will.

And that, friends, is what the motherf’in Rock is cooking. Autobots roll out.

If you liked this, I feel sorry for you! You’ll also like reading about a confrontation with a neighbor, or maybe hear me blab about my childhood sci-fi crushes on Matt Baume’s podcast! Let’s be horrible people together.