I never knew how fragile it all was.
I had always thought I was a confident, happy guy. I had lots of friends, a great job, made good money. But in the months after the breakup so much was exposed in me. So little strength. So many fears. Not enough hope. Something was missing and I started to think it had been missing for a long time.
I drank a lot. I ate mostly fast food or pizza. And I seemed to lose the ability to dispose of the empty pizza boxes. They just ended up scattered across the floor. Many nights I found myself lying among them. I didn’t shower much. I grew a beard. I didn’t decide to grow a beard—it just happened. It was the inevitable sidekick to not showering much. And then the bar I worked at closed down, leaving me jobless, which meant I had a whole lot more time to lie among empty pizza boxes and work on my beard.