I can't seem to go a day without hearing "Someone Like You" by Adele. At a deli, a café, in a store or on my very own iTunes. I've been listening to it for months now as an anthem of a relationship that needed to end but that I didn't want to end. It was at once hazy and undefined, punctuated by periods of intense attention and interaction followed by fallow periods of silence, extreme highs and lows interspersed in ways that fed off each other in what I'll delicately call not the healthiest way.

The Adele song is not an exact transliteration of that relationship, but the spirit behind it is one I've tried to feel all the way through me. She says in the link above that she was miserable and lonely when she wrote it, that it came at a moment when she was "on her knees" and that this song summarizes her entire relationship, and that it's made her who she is at the moment, and that is the part I deeply, deeply relate to. Wherever I am, when it comes on, I have to pause and listen to the whole thing, truly listening in a way I rarely do to even my favorite songs. You think you know what they say, you sing or hum along even if you don't know all the words, or maybe you just listen to the throatiness of Adele's voice, the power and beauty and sadness and love wrapped around every note.

It's also not a perfect song because it's a little insulting to everyone—myself, the person I was in love with, any new people who enter my life—to take the idea of finding "someone like" an ex, to explicitly compare one human being to another. It's impossible not only because that relationship was unlike any I've ever had in my life, what I hope in many ways is a uniquely singular experience, but also because we are all so very, very different. If you're looking at people to see how they measure up to other people, not only will they always fail, but you won't let yourself see their unique treasures if you're looking for someone else's.

 He tried hard to help me

You know, he put me at ease

And he loved me so naughty

Made me weak in the knees

Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on

I'm so hard to handle

I'm selfish and I'm sad

Now I've gone and lost the best baby

That I ever had

I wish I had a river I could skate away on

What these lyrics remind me of is that more than feeling loved or cared about or desired, though this relationship made me feel all those things, it made me feel gotten, which is probably the most elusive quality of all my relationships, something I've only truly felt in one other. I won't attempt to explain exactly why I felt that way, because I don't have concrete evidence, a single moment or conversation or exchange that told me he understood who I am to my core. It was something I felt, and it didn't require words or physical presence or anything except tapping in to it. It was something I desperately wanted to give back, in even the smallest of ways, something that I always look for whenever I meet someone new, whether the relationship is romantically inclined or not, becuase I'm not sure what the point of relating to people is if the person you're befriending isn't truly the person they are.

Yet it's pecisely this lack of anything more tangible than the deepest of feelings that makes me wonder , now, looking back, if all of that was only in my head. I'm pretty sure it wasn't, and the rational side of me knows that whether it was or not, I need to move on if I'm going to have the kind of life and relationship that truly meet my needs. And trust me, I'm trying to speed along, or at the very least, kickstart, that moving on process, with everything in my being. I'm not strong enough to pursue someone who is pretty much a textbook definition of taken, no matter what our feelings for each other were or are. I kept tricking myself into thinking I was that strong, or close enough to it, because I was so sure I couldn't live without it, and while certainly, my life is different without him in it, I can indeed live apart, but retain some of the best elements of what we shared.

Perhaps more than wanting to find "someone like" him, I want to find someone who makes me feel like the person I was when I was with him, when I felt like no amount of distance or difficulty could interrupt that connection. I don't want to overromanticize our kinship any more than I have (as if that were possible!), because in no way was it perfect, or anything close, but it impacted me so profoundly that extricating myself has proved both painful and challenging. Every time I think I've made progress I see or read or hear or remember something that reminds me of him and I'm back to, if not square one, somewhere much closer to it than I'd like to be.

"Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?" asks Adele in "Someone Like You." When I first heard the song, I was so tragically locked into holding on to the bitter side of myself, of that relationship's aftermath, that I couldn't access its sweetness, its transcendant moments that even though I was there often seem more like fiction than truth. I learned so much from that experience, about myself and who I want to be and how I want to be treated, and about what I have and need to give. I've learned that the process of getting over someone isn't straightforward, for me, at least. It zigs and zags, and one day I'll feel strong and proud and sure I've made the right choices, and the next I'll hear Adele singing and burst into tears.  

I'm also learning how much my instinct is to retreat in the wake of this. It's made me feel elated and blessed as well as neglected and a kind of sad I don't have words for. But I know it's also, very slowly, so slowly I'm still catching on to it, made me bring a level of empathy into my other friendships and relationships. I know that when I feel hurt I tend to lash out, to assume that I'm the only person feeling that way, and while the rational side of me knows that's not true, it's rarely been the rational side of me present while navigating this relationship, and I consider that one of its benefits. I've had to tap into a side of myself that operates by pure instinct and I'm grateful to have had that opportunity because had I only acted on rationality I highly doubt any of it would have happened. I want to push myself, even when it's not easy, to not operate out of self-protection, to live more by my heart (a word I plan to get tattooed on my inner arm as a birthday gift, and eternal reminder) than my head. I hope that is the greatest lesson this selfish, sad, hard to handle but nevertheless romantic person I'm trying to become puts into action.