The distractions seem to help.
Not for long, of course, and, if I pause a moment, the pain revisits me; but it helps when I can maintain my focus on other things. Books are marvelous for it... the fast-paced action novels that grasp your soul and don't let it go until the final page. But even those come to an end, and you're left with what you had before.
The passage of time helps, too.
If I can just keep my focus shallow, if I can just remain in the present, with my senses invested solely in what is before me, I can let time slowly ebb the emotion. I am aware the entire time of what I'm doing, of course, but I choose to do it anyways.
At the beginning, I consciously looked for something to distract me.
For the first two days it was a continual alternation between the pain of my thoughts and the distraction of the task I could find myself. Now, though, it's begun to fade, enough that I can speak about it, even if only about the process and not the cause itself.
That will come with time as well. Give me a couple more days.
The nights, though, are the worst.
Lying in bed, trying not to stare at the ceiling, trying to force my thoughts not to orient themselves around the emotion, around its core... it's hard. And the pain does resurface, and it's that much harder to try and reason through the next step. It is a scant relief to fall asleep, because I know that as soon as I do, the clock begins ticking off the minutes until I wake up again, and have to find the next occupation.
I don't really like to eat, not when I'm trying to contain my emotions like this. My stomach is a heavy box in which I conceal it, and my throat is the tense rope suspending it above nothingness. Who could try and put food into something like that?
Is this what pain feels like?
I don't want to tell anyone how seriously this is hurting me. I don't really want to admit it to myself, how constant this pressure is in my gut, this raw loneliness. I don't want the consequences, the implications of this emotion. It would mess up so many things... and young as I am, I wonder if every girl my age goes through something similar. Overachiever that I am, I wonder if I am experiencing the same thing, magnified a hundred times over. Mature as I am, I wonder if I'm going to regret the choices that I'm going to have to make.
Mostly, though, I wonder if he feels anything remotely similar.