Hayley DiMarco - The Dirt on Breaking Up

2004 by Hungry Planet

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

Fourth printing, May 2006

Ebook edition created 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-58558-525-0

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Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Literary Agents, Orange, California.

come on in

Dear Heartbroken,

If your heart feels like its been put through a paper shredder and then stomped on, then youve come to the right place. If you feel like youve been beaten up, used, and tossed away like yesterdays garbage, then this book is for you. If you gave someone your heart only to have them spit on it and turn and run away, then read on. Your heart is aching, throbbing even, and youre crying out for answers but getting nothing but static. You arent alone. Around the world hearts like yours are melting and tearing, ripping and breaking. The agony of a love gone wrong. The pain of a heart that feels like it will never mend. You are at the end of your rope and you need relief. Fear not, faithful friend, the end is in sight and your heart will hear singing again.

Do you realize that there are only 3 groups of people that have never felt like you do right now?

Boring people those who have never opened their heart to love.

Crazy people those who love but turn off their emotions so they dont have to feel the pain.

Liars those who are lying to themselves and to you.

For the rest of us, love and loss are a part of life. So youre not alone. Its going to hurt, and thats okay. Let it hurt. Thats why its called breaking up instead of joy-o-rama. But keep reading and we will get through this.

Dear Heartbreaker,

So you wanna dump someone?

There was a time when you loved them, or maybe you just really thought you loved them. But that time has passed. Now you are frustrated, angry, and just sick of the same ol routine. The time has comeyou know it hasbut breaking up is hard to do. You dont want to hurt them. You still care about themjust not like you used to.

Well, this book is for you. Sometimes its easiest to just walk away. Let them figure it out on their own. But you are a good person. You want to make it easy on them and yourself. You want to exit with style, not selfishness. So now you scream, How do I do this? How do I live my life the way I want to without destroying the people around me? Keep reading. This is going to hurt. There will be other things in your life that you will do that will hurt people too, but you still have to do them. You still have to pull the Band-Aid off, even though it hurts.

Truth

Time

Breaking up sucks! There is nothing else to say. But I cant stop there or this would be a really short book. So I will continue. It sucks. Period, the end, and I never want to do it again. I hated it last time and I hated it this time and I will hate it next time. I want to avoid the pain with every fiber of my pain-avoiding being. I want to keep my heart away from Hurtsville. But how, how, how? I asked myself. To answer myself I put on my little thinking cap and turned up the juice. How can I keep from ever having to break up again? I asked my little thinking-capped self. Self, I said, the way I see it, you have 2 options. Either you can swear off dating, thus assuring that you will never have to break up again, or you can promise yourself that you will marry the very next person you date, which will also certainly save you from another gruesome breakup. Its simple, really. Two easy choices for avoiding breakup pain.

Well, I immediately took off that stupid thinking cap. I mean, what kind of ideas were those? (Besides, people were staring and it didnt match my outfit.) Both options seemed kind of psychotic to me, cuz Im dang sure Im not going to give up the opposite sex. And Id be an idiot to say, I swear, the next hottie that comes along and makes me purr is going to be mine! Forever and ever amen! That aint happenin. So now what? If there are only 2 options for avoiding the breakup and Im not up for either of them, then I guess I only have one solution: get really good at breaking up.

The truth is, my willing participants in this sick little book, that in any dating relationship you have only 2 options: break up or get married . Thats it. You cant just date for eternity (well, I guess you could, but how lame). And the other nasty little truth that you probably dont want me to mention right now, but what the heck, its my party, is this: that if you are in high school right now and are reading this book, its probably because youve figured out the very important but little-accepted fact that we beat to death in our book Dateable, and that is that it will not last. The relationship that you just broke was not meant to last. It wasnt meant to last because you arent at a point where it could last. You are at a point where the world is your oyster. (I have no idea what that means, but it sounds cool!) The future is yours to grab and ride like a pony at the fair. Okay, a little more exciting than that! But dating was really only a temporary distraction that got you off the track of your real purpose in life. So its time to get back on track and get through this nightmare called breaking up.

That said, breaking up still sucks! I hate it! I hate that you have to go through it. It will be hard no matter which side of the break you are on. But listen, there is hope. This book you hold in your hand, or that you are looking at so rudely over someones shoulder, will not change the fact that breaking up is one of the worst things you will ever experience. I know, Im not being Captain Encouragement here, but you will survive this. You will get through the sewer of crappy emotions and break through to the other side. Yeah, there is another side. Just hang in there and well get there.