In how you approach heartbreak, you do not really had a lot of labels. Maybe heartbreak isn’t like a map with clear directions; it's more like wandering through a fog, where each step is a guess, where you experiment to find which is which.

Sure, we’ve heard about the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But what are the other stages? There’s no way to group it all into just five labels. How do you define the stage where every song on the radio is a dagger, where seeing an old sweatshirt in the closet give comfort instead? The stage when stranger flirting feels like a betrayal?

And then, when you are in the in-between—somewhat petty, somewhat accepting—why does no book remind you to be careful? Oh yes, you've passed the phase of social withdrawal, the phase where sleep feels like a chore—but then you discover that that someone is not just dating casually but being physical with someone new. And suddenly, the world shifts on its axis in the most unpleasing way possible. You’re thrust back into a place where all you can do is spend hours staring into the void, asking why, asking how, asking who you are now and who that someone is. What is this phase, and what is this alienated territory?

You want to label what this is, but no word is good enough. Hypothetically, maybe just maybe heartbreak is a thousand funerals and none at all. It’s a phone number you don’t want to delete, a birthday you don’t know how to celebrate. It’s the shadow that walks beside you, that slips into your bed at night. It’s the questions that have no answers, the silence that speaks louder than words. It’s a shattered mirrors, each one reflecting a piece of what was. And maybe, just maybe, heartbreak is not something you figure out but something you live with, like like a secret you carry, heavy and light, all at once.