A small quiz

Which stage of the breakup am I in?

There is an order to this, and knowing where you are makes the next part smaller.

9 questions 2 minutes

Four flowers in a row, a bud, a full bloom, a flower losing petals and a new green shoot in small pots on a windowsill, soft watercolour illustration

There is an order to this, and knowing where you are makes the next part smaller.

A breakup has an order to it, and almost nobody tells you what the order is, so you end up thinking you should have been somewhere else by now. You are not behind. These nine questions look at very ordinary things: the first thought in the morning, what you have done with the photos, what a song in the car does to you. From that they place you on the map, which matters, because what helps in the first week is no use in the third month, and the other way around. Wherever this puts you, it is a stage, and stages move.

2 minutes · 9 questions

the questions in this quiz

  1. The first hour you are properly awake. What is the first thought?

    • It takes a second to remember, and then you remember
    • A sentence you could have said differently
    • Nothing much. You get up because it is a day
    • Something about today. Actual today
    • You had a whole dream that had nothing to do with him in it

  2. His name comes up in a conversation with a friend.

    • You feel it in your stomach before you hear the rest of the sentence
    • You want to know everything, and you ask in a casual voice
    • You go flat, and change the subject
    • It stings, and then the conversation moves and so do you
    • It is a name. You are curious rather than caught

  3. What have you done with the photos?

    • They are where they were. You have not been able to open the folder
    • You look at them, and build the story again out of the good ones
    • You moved them once and then stopped halfway through
    • You put them away last month and you have not been back
    • They are in a folder with everything else from that year, and that is fine

  4. A song from that time comes on in the car.

    • You pull over, or you turn it off fast
    • You let it play and rewrite the whole thing while it does
    • You let it play and feel almost nothing, which is worse
    • You let it play, cry a bit, and finish the drive
    • You sing along. It is a good song and it stopped being his

  5. Sunday afternoon.

    • The clock is not really moving
    • You draft things. Some of them are messages
    • You are on the sofa and the day has gone somewhere
    • You went out for an hour and it was better than staying in
    • Booked, and you were looking forward to it

  6. Somebody asks how you are.

    • You have not worked out the sentence yet
    • You explain the situation, in detail, again
    • Fine. And you would rather not be asked
    • Better than last month, and you mean it
    • You answer about your actual week

  7. What are you doing with the possibility that he gets in touch?

    • You have not got as far as thinking about it
    • Some part of your day is arranged around it
    • You stopped expecting it, and stopping hurt too
    • It crosses your mind, and it does not run the day
    • You would read it, answer honestly, and carry on with your evening

  8. An evening on your own with the phone face down.

    • You do not manage it. You keep the noise on
    • You are not alone. You are in the conversation in your head
    • Long. That is the hardest hour of the day
    • Quieter than it was. You got through Tuesday and it was all right
    • Good. The evening is yours again

  9. Try to picture next spring.

    • You cannot get the picture to come at all
    • He is in it, and most of it depends on him
    • It looks like now, and that is the heavy part
    • Small things. A trip, a class, a different kind of Sunday
    • Open. You are curious about who is in it

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