So my boyfriend broke up with me.

As a lot of you know, my boyfriend broke up with me. People seem surprised at how well I have bounced back, but, in all honesty, this was one of the hardest experiences of my life.

Admittedly, sharing my personal life with you here on the blog was a bit of a gamble. I wanted to show the world how happy we were and inspire other couples to travel, but now that everything has fallen apart, I feel I owe you an explanation. It’s weird for me to have a diary of our relationship in the form of this blog that I have to face every single day. It’s like an unwelcome reminder of what used to be and what could have been. Was it travelling that made it so he broke up with me?

Yes and no.

Mostly yes.

Richard and I were in our early 20s when we met as solo backpackers in a youth hostel in California and started dating. That’s awfully young to commit to a long term relationship. Scratch that, we never actually committed to a long term relationship. It occurred organically, as a result of being so good together. I truly felt I had found my soulmate for all those years. For me, this relationship had the stamp of foreverness all over it. I was fulfilled and there was no question to be had about any aspect of our relationship. It was perfect for me. Or so I thought.

We travelled so well together – and not just this last year and a half. We always have – and this was a major asset to our relationship on top of all the great things we had going for us. We were unique: everything was smooth sailing for the whole ten years that it lasted.

And then everything came to an abrupt halt when we decided to travel individually for a month last February. I came back, and he broke up with me.

It was not something I had expected, planned or wanted, but it happened. And this is how it’s going to be, so I might as well come to terms with it, somehow. Plus, I have something beautiful to look back on, and I will cherish that forever. I feel like travelling fast-forwarded the evolution of our life and thought process and this could be why he broke up with me. And likewise, having to lick my wounds all by myself at the other end of the world was possibly easier.

I remember me saying to someone just a few weeks before he broke up with me, if ever anything happened to us, it would be the end of me. And when my boyfriend broke up with me, I really did think that it was the end of me. I didn’t want to accept it. I didn’t even think I could keep going. In fact, I decided not to keep going, but something inside me told me going home was a mistake. So I’ve been keeping going, or trying to, at least.

My journey has taken on some unexpected turns and I have decided to roll with it. It’s an incredibly empowering feeling to know that you, and you only, can decide what you do with your pain, and I have to hold onto this because otherwise, I will trip and fall. What’s the point of dwelling in the past when I am in this magical part of the world anyway? It’s a whole lot sunnier in the now. That said, I have no idea what I am doing. I have no plan. And you know what? It feels kind of amazing. Scary, yes, but also amazing.

It’s an incredibly empowering feeling to know that you, and you only, can decide what you do with your pain. What’s the point of dwelling in the past when I am in this magical part of the world anyway? It’s a whole lot sunnier in the now.

The backlog of blog posts I had that included Richard have now all been published. From here on in, this is My story.

Welcome to Only Amélie.

Change is good. I’m realising how much potential for new experiences this has. Turns out, it’s not the end of me at all. It might in fact be the beginning. Many doors are opening around me and I have already stepped through a few of them. I am seeing a lot of scary and beautiful things through them. My next few months are already shaping up to be a lot different from my last 16 – and I am so excited to share it all with you!