Mac store rep: Is your hard drive backed up by any chance? (glancing up at me while his fingers frantically type away)
Me: silence.
Me: blank stare.
Me: This isn’t good, is it?

On the drive home, I eye my dead hard drive next to me in the passenger seat. As I try to wrap my head around everything I just lost on my Mac, it occurs to me that apparently you really can dump everything from the past and start over. Just like that.

Later, I sit on my sofa, computer in my lap (with brand spankin’ new hard drive) tethered to my brand spankin’ new external hard drive. I look around in silence and sigh, thinking why is it, that when a relationship ends, no matter how gentle the ending may be, that there is a period of complete and utter awfulness? It has been said that technology adds to the potential pool of ways to feel yucky after a loss. My phone, once an innocent piece of hardware sitting unassumingly on my ledge, has now become my enemy of silence. I stare at it, telling the little fucker to ring already.

I wait a week before deciding, after some friendly prodding from my friends, that it is time to deal with reality and stop pretending that maybe the breakup was just a bad dream and change my Facebook status. With a simple click of the button, I can go from “in a relationship with {formerly known as super awesome girl}” to “single”. But not without first facing the prompt: your relationship will be cancelled with {formerly known as super awesome girl} on saving. Uh. Ok. My eyebrows raise involuntarily, a little stunned by the wording. And so, apparently you can cancel your relationship. Just like that. I hesitate a moment, hovering over the save button and realize that formally “canceling my relationship” is like facing emotions head on – confusing, sad, with a blend of WTF just happened?

In a perfect world, we would never lose people we care about. Does this mean that in our very non-perfect real world, the best we can do is keep our hearts open and let love in, and if it’s time to, to let it go? Just like that? Are we to simply accept the replaying of every moment, both amazing and awful, the tears, and that moment when you first wake up, still on the fringes of dream world, where you forget? And this is how I find myself, in an attempt to embrace our imperfect world by internally patting myself on the back for my steadfast resistance of cookie-dough, drunk texting, and shoe shopping. I can’t help but wonder: what is the recipe for breaking up with dignity? What is the right blend of experiencing emotions, facing reality, and adequate feeling sorry for yourself while listening to sad songs, and picking up, moving forward, and moving on?

The truth, I decide, is in the details. In a black and white world, I am right, she is wrong, I am good, she is bad, and my anger carries me through the risky – likely-to-drunk-dial phase. Unfortunately, I live in grayland. She isn’t wrong. Or shady. She is amazing. And I’m not angry. I’m sad. In grayland, a.k.a, reality, we aren’t compatible in some way. Processing grief in grayland, I decide, is both easier and harder. First, goodie for me for picking someone very amazing and non-shady. Too bad the same qualities that attracted me are still there, making it all the more difficult to let her go (dammit). Second, goodie for our facing reality and not hurting each other further. Too bad an ending with very little ugly leaves just enough room for the two most dreaded post breakup words: What if?

And so, knee-deep in grayland, I make a pot of red pepper soup, measuring cups folding in peppers and carrots. Broth and water. And I know then that I’m ½ sad, ¼ disappointed, plus a mixture of 1/8 hopeful, 1/8 grounded, with a sprinkle of gratitude for good memories and love. Just like that.