I’m standing on a street corner in downtown Minneapolis in early winter.  It’s early evening but the sky is dark and it’s very quiet.  Huge, fluffy snowflakes are falling, beautiful and pure – covering the sidewalks and streets and cars with a soft blanket of white, but I don’t feel cold.  It feels like I’m standing in a snow globe.  I’m wearing a long, red, mohair coat and my blond hair falls over my shoulders.

“But I still love you,” I tell Tim, looking up at him with pleading eyes.

“I think I’ll always love you,” he responds, tucking a strand of my long, straight hair behind my ear.

And then he walks away.  Leaving me alone on the street corner, in the snow.

Earlier that day, I had taken a bus trip from UW-Madison with my Advertising Club to attend a workshop in Minneapolis.  Things with Tim had been on and off for years, and I knew we were not in a good place.  I think part of me felt like if I could just get him to look at me – to look me in the eyes, he wouldn’t be able to let me go.  And so when we had arrived in downtown Minneapolis, I left my group to meet him at a local pub.

We talked, avoiding the topic at hand.  Things felt natural, but with an undertone of nervous energy.  How was this going to end?

On the bus ride back the following day, I rested my head against the cool window, watching the snow-covered fields flash by.  It was over.  I was heartbroken.  And yet somehow peaceful.  I felt like we had seen it through.  We hadn’t left this breakup to a phone call or email.  We had looked into each other’s eyes and acknowledged that what we had mattered.  There was love here – maybe there always would be.  This wasn’t our time.  Maybe it was simply a chapter in our ongoing love story. But the finality of being left on that street corner: red coat against the fresh snow, it felt finished.  Complete.  And I suddenly understood that sometimes heartbreak could be healing.  And sometimes love just wasn’t enough.

And I was going to be okay.