Body By:....a broken heart?

Being a female in my early twenties, I have experienced far more than my fair share of heartache. Like most ladies, i definitely have a "type" when it comes to my significant others. More than one dark eyed rocker complete with crooked smiles, tattoos, and a southern twang thrown in there somewhere, have all introduced m
e to the business end of a broken heart and left me face first in an empty bag of cookies. All left a mark, none of which have ever effected me like Bam (our thinly veiled conglomerate name).

'Bam' is my Ross, my Zack Morris, my Mr. Big all rolled into one, only better because he was mine. I fell for him more than i ever thought someone could love another person. He could make me laugh to the point i was crying and anytime i was bummed he would do the most random thing to make me crack up. He was my best friend, and meeting him at 18 years young he was also my first grown-up love. Our on-again off-again relationship went on from 18-22 and as much as hes shattered my heart over the last 5 years all the pieces still belong to him. Everything came to a head more recently in the long distance leg of the relationship( Me in TX, him in my homeland of CA). After spending an amazing week back home together with our friends and family and mapping out the next five years of our lives together, i returned home and immediately put our plan into motion of me moving back home. I broke the lease on my apartment, gave away furniture, notified both my bosses of my intent to transfer and let the anticipation grow. Monday night i fell asleep to him saying "I Love You and miss you", Tuesday after some tension from his workday,he Houdini'd himself into thin air. After confirming with his brother that he didn't die or fall into a coma suddenly (the one excuse i could have forgiven) my split second of worry was replaced with devastation, depression and the most painful kind of loneliness.
After a few days I felt numb. I almost wanted to make myself cry just to feel something. I listened to Tim McGraw's "My Best Friend" on repeat and every emo song known to man to drive some tears out of me but nothing would bring on the tears. I wasn't sad but I wasn't happy either, I had stopped going to the gym in my free time and was only physically there when i was being paid to instruct, but mentally I was about 1500 miles to the west. I was constantly wondering what he was doing, who he was with, what he was listening to, is he thinking of me? and so forth. It wasn't till i was watching the movie 2012 and was listening to a Russian guy speak when it reminded me how much i used to love him joking around with me in his goofy made up Russian accent that i finally broke down. So began the water works. Hours later, i had an epiphany: this feeling blows. I was so tired of him consuming my life when i so clearly wasn't consuming a fraction of his. The next day i taught the best kickboxing class i had ever taught- using him as inspiration to fuel my jabs, I pumped out a class that would make Billy Blanks weak in the knees. I no longer felt numb,instead i felt fired up and alive. Leaving the gym that night i felt so amazing, i practically skipped to my car with a kool-aid grin slapped across my face. Call it the endorphins pumping through my veins. Call it the psycho energy drink i drank, or the gorgeous sunset in the Texas sky, but I knew something finally clicked and I'm gonna call it the Bam Effect. He can take the title of my first love, he can take the remains of my broken heart, but what i just put in the gym; my effort, my sweat, my determination and the sweet biceps that stem from such effort were mine and mine only and he can never, ever take that from me.

So after 174 Group X classes and now floating around 23 lbs lighter, I finally feel free of the dead weight that was keeping me from seeing how much of a bad ass i can be all on my own. In reality, losing Bam did me a huge favor. Where i used to skip the gym in favor of "quality" time with him, I now launch myself one class closer to my tanned and toned goal and one further away from the sad girl i still can't believe i used to be. When we broke up, i thought i would fall apart to nothing. Instead i made myself to be better without him than i ever could be with him.