I Blocked You On Facebook Today And It Felt Amazing

I hovered over the button. I knew I wanted to do it. But I had to get up the guts. I took a deep breath. I looked at your profile one last time. I hit BLOCK. And it felt amazing.

Now you don't exist in my world.

I don't have to open my phone and see pics of you with other girls, status updates about your oh-so-perfect-life, news articles about your pet causes.

We're now really and truly finished. You're off the grid.

I can pretend our relationship never happened. If I can't see you, are you really there?

You can't see me, either. You'll have no idea I blocked you unless you check, and I know you check. You look to see what I'm up to. You commented on something the other day — just a news article, but I deleted it anyway.

Now, sooner or later, you'll think, I haven't seen her stuff in my feeds lately.

You'll go to click on my profile. But I won't be there.

You'll be confused at first. Then the slow, dawning realization will come: I blocked you. I don't want you to see my life. I don't want you in my life at all.

Because social media is basically life, right?

I mean, you judge people based on what you see on Facebook and Instagram. You keep up with their lives that way: who's in a relationship, who's engaged, who's married and who just had a rugrat. It's how you see who went on vacation and who went to Sunday brunch.

Now you'll have no idea what I'm doing. You won't be able to see me. I won't exist in your world.

And I'll have no idea what you're doing. You'd think I'd regret that, but it feels amazing. No more will your life take up any of my headspace.

I won't be scrolling, see that you were out last night, and wonder if you met any girls. I won't speculate on the identity of girls in pictures with you.

I won't have to think about your mom, or see your stupid sports commentary, or look at the articles you find interesting.

I will cease to think about you unless the real world demands it.

That's a huge step forward. The best way to breakup is to do it cleanly.

I don't want to pine over you, and seeing your profile pic reminds me how hot you are, and how much I miss you in bed. It reminds me of all the good times we had together before things went bad.

Facebook won't remind me of your birthday or tell me how long we've been friends. One day I'd have been grateful for the knowledge. I soaked up every scrap of you. Now I'm glad I don't know.

Not knowing is the first step toward not caring. And I can't wait not to care at all.

It already feels glorious to block you. It feels like I'm taking care of me, instead of wondering about you. I deserve to take care of me, too, rather than pine over you and yours and what was ours.

You were gone when we broke up. Now you need to be gone from my head, so you can be gone from my heart.  

And as I blocked you, I realized something important: I won't miss you. Oh, I might still miss our relationship. I might still miss our time together. But I'm moving away from that. I won't miss knowing what you're doing. I won't miss daily updates on your life.

I'm making progress. I'm letting go. And I'm almost all the way there.

Alissa Scully is a freelance writer, stay-at-home-mom, and a Ph.D quitter of a major university in the South. She spends much of her time teaching political activism and media work.