The first time I sat down to write about breakups, I thought I was ready. I mean, I grew up bottle-feeding colts born on icy Montana nights and watching my mom use duct tape to patch up everything from fences to her favorite old boots. “Tough” isn’t something I had to learn—I lived it. So when my editor asked me to explore heartbreak for This Publication, I puffed out my chest and thought, Sure, how hard can it be?
Spoiler alert: harder than riding bareback on a half-trained filly headed straight downhill.
The Wilderness of Vulnerability
Writing about something universal—something as deeply personal as losing the person you thought might be your forever—is like trying to catch a trout barehanded in a fast stream. Slippery, frustrating, and humbling. I wasn’t just telling the story of other people’s breakups; I had to open the box on my own.
Oh, I’ve been there. Picture me in my early 20s, fresh out of college, starry-eyed and half-dreaming about forever with someone who said all the right things until, one day, they didn’t. One breakup in particular came after a long, quiet drift apart—our relationship thinning out like fog dispersing over a morning pasture. There was no blowup, no dramatic moment. Just two people realizing they weren’t growing toward the same horizon anymore. It hurt in a slow, aching way, like a sore muscle I couldn’t stretch out.
That breakup was the first memory I dredged up for this piece, sitting at my desk with a mug of lukewarm coffee and a blank page that seemed to taunt me. Writing about it reopened wounds I’d thought had scarred over. And yet, it was also somehow cathartic—like picking hay out of my hair after a long day on the ranch. Messy, yes, but necessary.
Lessons in Heartbreak (from Horses and Humanity)
After hours of staring at my blinking cursor (and a good cry set off by an old Taylor Swift playlist—don’t judge), I had a thought: breakups aren’t so different from training a young horse. Stay with me here.
The first lesson I learned on our family ranch is that you can’t force anything—not love, not trust, and sure as heck not a horse’s hooves onto a trailer floor if they don’t want to step up. Relationships are about delicacy, patience, and reciprocity. Breakups? They’re about learning how to let go when the load’s become too heavy for both of you.
I thought about one particular mare I worked with when I was a teenager. She was beautiful—chestnut brown with a white blaze streaking down her nose. We got along so well at first, but when it came time to saddle her up for the first time, things went sideways. She reared, bucking against my attempts to guide her, until my dad leaned on the corral fence and said, “Sometimes, you’ve gotta unclench your hands, kid.”
He was right—both about the horse and, I’d later learn, about relationships. If you grip too tightly to what’s not working, you wear yourself out and spook the other side into galloping away faster. Unclenching, whether it’s your fists or your heart, allows movement—freedom for whatever needs to happen next.
Breakups Are Awkward, Let’s Just Admit It
Once I allowed myself to actually write about all that wobbly, raw grief and gumption that comes from matters of the heart, something became clear: we don’t talk enough about how hilariously awkward breakups are.
The logistics alone can make anyone sweat. Who gets the plant you both “rescued” from that clearance aisle? Do you split custody of the distant, barely-acquaintance friends you only hung out with as a couple? And let’s not forget that moment when you run into each other at the grocery store for the first time post-breakup, both holding things you wish you weren’t holding (for me, it was a family-sized tub of ice cream I was definitely planning to eat out of with a spoon).
People often glamorize breakups in pop culture: the sweeping “I’m finally free” montage or the wine-fueled self-discovery epiphany set to an Adele soundtrack. Let me level with you: real breakups are far less cinematic. They’re awkward texts to your friends asking if they can help you move a bookshelf. They’re crying over pizza because you forgot the very specific toppings your ex used to order every time. They’re googling “how much is too much to charge for a couch your ex left behind?”
It’s messy and inglorious and deeply human. And that’s okay.
What the Hardest Piece Taught Me (and You)
This article, as challenging as it was to write, taught me to sit with my mess. It reminded me that heartbreak isn’t a problem to solve; it’s an experience that demands to be lived through. And while I’ll always reach for duct tape when I need to hold something together, I’ve learned not everything can—or should—be mended that way.
So if you’re in the thick of heartbreak today, let me leave you with the gift of lessons learned through plenty of my own missteps:
- Breakups need boundaries. Think of it like fencing off a pasture—sometimes you need a little space to protect what’s growing on each side.
- Feel your feelings. Don’t rush to “be okay.” Take time to ugly cry in the car, binge shows where nobody ends up happy, or channel every ounce of angst into learning a new skill (I hear sourdough starters are therapeutic).
- Let humor carry you. It won’t erase the pain, but laughing at the absurdity of life—at least a little—takes the edge off. You burned your ex’s sweater in a ritualistic bonfire? Keep the ashes; you’ve got a story for the ages.
- Move on your timeline, not anyone else’s. Healing isn’t a race. Some people will tell you to “get back out there” before you’re ready—smile politely and ignore them. Your heart knows its pace.
And finally, remember this: a breakup is a chapter, not the whole book. If you’re staring at the blank pages of what’s next, know that they aren’t as intimidating as they feel. They’re an opportunity. New beginnings tend to look a lot like endings when you’re still squinting through the haze.
Take it from a Montana girl who’s spent a whole lot of time watching rainclouds clear over a rugged horizon: what comes next may surprise you.
