I don't fully understand why it hit me as hard as it did. Looking back now, I know I couldn't have stayed that hurt forever. But you can't change what you felt. So here it is.
At the start of the year I went through a breakup. It wasn't straightforward — a lot of it was stuff going on inside me more than anything the other person did. But it broke something open. And for a stretch that ran from roughly March to June, I was in a bad place. Not functioning bad. Just — everything felt heavy, I was emotional all the time, and I kept reaching for things to numb it. Different distractions. Whatever I could find.
I started swimming. Thought that would help. It didn't, and I couldn't keep it up anyway.
The thing that actually helped
I found Letterboxd.
I don't know exactly when it clicked, but at some point I just started watching movies. A lot of them. Sad ones, cheerful ones, stupid comedies. I watched The Hangover more times than I want to admit. I found this South Korean show — Tangerines — which I still think about. And a bunch of buddy films, friendship movies, the kind where the whole point is that people show up for each other and life is still worth living.
Something about sitting with those stories — not escaping into them but actually feeling them — started to move something. I can't explain it better than that. The movies didn't fix anything. But they reminded me what normal felt like. That people go through things and come out the other side. That friendship is real.
August
In August I went on a day trek with my friends. One day, nothing dramatic. But something shifted on that trek. I came back different.
I started going to the gym. I stopped crying in my room. I started taking the actions I'd been putting off for months — things I should have done much earlier but couldn't get myself to do while I was stuck.
By December
I was okay. Not perfect — there were still rough patches — but okay. Functional. Moving forward.
Now
Progressing at light speed. That's genuinely how it feels.
I'm writing this partly because building in public means being honest about the whole picture — not just the projects and the code and the goals, but the times when you couldn't do any of that. The recovery is part of the story too.
If you're in the March-to-June part of something right now — watch some movies. Go on a trek. Let time do what only time can do.