Love, lust, loss of love, heartbreak, expired love, love long distance, unrequited love, destructive love. No matter the label attuned to the love we are experiencing, in that moment when we look into their eyes. When we catch a glimpse of what it was, that made us fall. All we want is for them to lay with us and just forget about the world, because underneath their skin just feels like home.

But then reality surfaces, an argument is ignited and a comment is made. One that irritates us or breaks us, and what lead to the now is cemented once again. So we don the pink prom dress, we become Izzie Stevens shivering on Denny’s deathbed as we spill out our confusion, the what ifs and the how will I with outs, to our dearest friends.

I’ve donned this pink prom dress many times. I’ve been the friend who has unstrapped this dress from my mates back as I’ve cradled their tears. And I’ve even been the bastard who hemmed the seems on that dress and slipped it onto someone. Someone who just wanted something meaningful, but in return for opening their heart got entrapped in this gown, for a season or two.  

Sometimes the world even spins to give us a synergized fitting of aha heart shake and together with our bestie we both don the pink prom dress at exactly the same time. And in that shared New York gallery esque ceilinged apartment, the one that you both imagined you’d share with your beaus. Your wife in life and you both lie helpless on the floors of your bedrooms. Cradling that jumper left behind that smells like them, playing Bernard Fanning’s Tea and Sympathy on high rotate and choosing not to open your door and just go next door and hold each other; because in this moment, in this heartbreak, it’s easier to rest motionless than move forward.

I’ve seen tiny dancers who beckoned positivity every day and spun like a ballerina in a music box to the world, get lost in a blanket of harmful addiction to numb the pain of this gown. I’ve witnessed tears from the most boldly, assured and masculine men flow like torrent rapids, as the stitching of said dress pierced at their heartstrings. And I’ve even cradled someone who I loved dearly as headlights came flashing for us in the medium line of the Hopetown Alpha overpass, begging her to remain still and just get the fuck of this motorway, for us.

You’d think with modern technology and the ever-evolving world that we live in, that a cure would have been found for this gown. An app created to send out reminders not to text them, not to call them, not to listen to that playlist that is you and them. But sadly no such intravenous injection exists to deflate our hearts seizures for them. Our friends have the hindsight to know we must move on, yet like that nineties toy anklet called Skip It. We continue to jump and leave this gown attached to us, because the fear of it slamming into our ankles and us having to say goodbye to them forever, is just too hard to comprehend without losing our breath.

Yet when it happens, when we breathe without them, when the tears of winter open our eyes to the scent of a blossoming spring. Shedding that pink prom gown becomes the most liberating feeling in the world. We discover the texture of lemon, the aesthetic of ultramarine blue, the warmth of chocolate brown and the excitement of crisp apple.

Finding the sensations of a new season, the strength to walk down the sidewalks of your relationship without the phantom pain of their fingertips interlinked with yours, and the ability to wake up to the dawning of a new day without the invisible silhouette of their chest spooning your back like a hot water bottle. Is and will be one of the most difficult glacier summits to reach, yet it will become one of the most significant teachings of your life.

Because when we pick up the pieces of that smashed vase that we shattered on our wooden floorboards like Carrie Bradshaw. What we find is that we are still the person we were before them. And once we have the nerve to strut independently through a crowded cityscape, boldly single and driven to drive the compass of our destiny, alone but confident.  We become liberated enough to be the third wheel without feeling lonely, to dance with our friends on a crowded dance floor oblivious to everyone in the room but the motions of our own groove and we find the best shade of that Katherine Heigl gown that exists, the one that is uniquely and distinctly us.

So don’t shed tears when you hear Robyn, instead, choose to dance with ecstatic confidence as you catch a glimpse of them on a dance floor in an embrace with someone else. Because bold bitches who can dance on their own with an effortlessly cool swag can captivate a dance floor of suitors, without even realising the intoxicating charm of their groove.

Written by Samuel Elliot Snowden