Last Monday, or was it last last Monday. The Monday after Christmas. My right bottom wisdom tooth was bothering me so I went to my cousin's husband to get it pulled. It was infected. Because he is not an oral surgeon, he couldn't give me sedation and for fear of nicking a nerve he tried to not cut away any gum/bone around the wisdom tooth. It took a lot of scary looking metal instruments pulling and pushing and forcing and he finally got it out. TWO HOURS LATER. At one point I started falling asleep because it was taking so long. He had to re-lidocaine me two more times because so much time had passed since the initial injection of anesthesia. It wasn't awful but it was a little traumatic since he had abused the shit out of my mouth that at the end of it all it felt like I had a sore throat from a cold from the combination of keeping my mouth open and tense for 2 hours straight and him slipping a few times and jamming tools into it. I hate to admit it but I did feel kind of orally raped.

And you know. It's family and my mom was right there so I'm sure he was under a lot of pressure. He's a good guy so I feel no personal animosity against him. And he talked me through it the whole time so I felt a lot more at ease. That's saying a lot because I have high anxiety that causes me to panic and subsequently pass out. Yeah I know, I'm kind of a pussy. Like this one time I was on a ski lift - it had been my first time back on one in like 5 years. The altitude and anxiety made me all light headed and it was all I could do to concentrate really hard to keep my shit together from like passing out and falling a hundred feet to my death.

But my mom was pretty steamed that he put me through 2 hours of torture.

Anyway, about 4-5 days after the extraction, my left bottom wisdom tooth started fucking hurting, RADIATING with pain from the root up. My cousin's husband had told me that that one was starting to form a cyst around it so I should get that out as soon as I could. So it was either the cyst was becoming cysty-er, or, my theory, that now that there was room from the previous extraction, the remaining tooth was starting to push all my other teeth over so that it could grow out. Whatever the reason was, I ended up getting that one extracted today.

We went to a different doctor at the insistence of my mom, who didn't want me to sit through another 2 hours of laborious tooth-pulling. I kind of felt bad because my cousin's husband had done all that work, for free, and we're all sneaking around behind his back. But whatever, 2 hours? Come on.

It took 12 minutes to get this one out. I was de-fucking-lighted despite how the entire left side of my face/head was numb, including my ear. He numbed the shit out of me for insurance.

It's a good thing the right side of my gums had sufficient time to heal before getting the other one out or else I would have been starving.

At 2:30am I woke up from a painkiller-induced coma and made my way down the stairs, hobbling from both hunger and an oxycodone hangover. I proceeded to make myself some mashed potatoes with gratuitous amounts of garlic and butter. During the laborious mashing action, the kid living downstairs (my mom has an international student/boarder situation going on) came up for a midnight snack. It was only after he made his way back downstairs that I realized my pants had a giant rip precisely where the thigh meets the ass. Meaning he probably saw portions of my bare ass and lacy panties as I was furiously and somewhat unnecessarily mashing the crap out of the potatoes with a ladle and spoon (as I have no potato masher at my mom's house and did not really remember that I have a Kitchenaid mixer until I was like 80% through). How embarrassing.

Well, a generous portion of garlic mashed potatoes topped with American cheese, 5 clementines, and 1 Percocet later, I am just about ready to pass out. It only sucks that I need to be back at school in 2 days so let's hope that the fact that this procedure took 1/8 (I think that's right, but don't put too much stock in my math skills) the time that it took to do the other directly correlates to the time it takes for me to heal.

The good news for all you eligible gentlemen out there, I am back on the market, tentatively.

I still have baggage, but I think it's just a small carry-on, and soon it'll just be a small tote bag, and then, maybe, like, a fanny pack or a hand purse.

I am relatively happy. I had made an appointment with a counselor on campus last Wednesday, when my grief was its absolute worst. Come Monday, I was actually doing pretty okay but I kept the appointment anyway because I think counseling is a good way to get a fresh perspective on things, and to talk to someone other than friends who would have heard the same shit like 20 times over.

I can't say with 100% certainty that I will completely be over a serious, 4-year relationship within a short amount of time. There is still, definitely, a residue of sticky bullshit on my heart that'll take quite some time to rub off. And even now, it's difficult to say whether I'm mostly over it for real or if I'm just doing a really good job of covering it up. But I'm definitely on the mend and I think I'll be okay.

I have family, and I have friends. I make plans on the weekends and I'll try to have a conversation with someone at least once a day. I walk my dogs and, as usual, I read for school.

I think it's a decent plan.

My now ex-boyfriend called me approximately 24 hours ago to tell me that this is not working anymore, he just can't do it. All so dramatic.

I am 25 and I have wasted at least 2 years of my life out in Vegas so I could be with him just a little longer.

I loved him enough to trust that he wouldn't do this to me, and he did.

The thing is, nothing happened. Or maybe it did, but knowing him, nothing really did happen. But he has poor stress management skills and I was the first thing he cut out of his life when things got a little bit tough for him.

I would joke and tell him that I would dump him if we weren't engaged by the time I turned 25. I guess he took my word on it(?).

This is quite possibly the shittiest thing he could have done to me because I am in my first year of law school and walking around crying half the time looking like a zombie is not conducive to proper learning. And breaking it off at a quarter to 4 in the morning when I have class the same day? Icing on the cake.

It's incredibly sad, all of it. I don't know how this ranks in terms of the break ups in my life because it superficially feels like none of them compare to this. But I'm sure half of it was because I blocked most of the trauma from my memory. And this time will be no different. The only thing is that I was banking on the hope that the breakup before this one would have been my last but I guess that's what I get for dating someone 3 years younger than me who never had any inkling of committing in the first place.

And I feel like a complete moron. Because I have been in his shoes, where the guy was completely into me and I was with him even though I knew that there was no chance whatsoever that we would end up together in the long run, only because I didn't have the balls to dump him.

So is this what it was for him? A convenient relationship with someone who he knew he would never end up with? That just got dragged out for a really, really long time because he needed an available roommate?

This is the second time we broke up because of this reason. Things in life got a little hard for him and he dumped me. This time I won't be fighting for him because I need someone in my life who is on the same page as me.

I'm done. If you thought this would ultimately go nowhere you should have ended it a long time ago. You asked me to cherish the memories of the four years we had together but please know that I will erase you from my life within the next 6 months, if not sooner. I've done it before and this time will be no different. It'll be hard but I've gotten really good at covering hurt.