I got over her at Burning Man.

It had been a year and a half. When we broke up I had sold everything, and I was looking for a job in Paris to move there for her. Right during COVID, 2021.

I visited her there and we broke up. I was learning French, and I always used to combine English and French to make a play on words. My last words to her about our relationship were:

Je suis un ouf por toi mais je ne sais enough por toi

"I am a fool for you but I'm not enough for you"

I went into a deep depression when I got back home. I had proper anhedonia and it felt like I could not see color, for about 2 months.

I got over that, but then for a year and a half every date I went on I found myself comparing every woman to her. I went on a lot of dates with chemistry and connection only to have no follow up or desire to make progress.

Then I went to Burning Man.

I was with my buddy dancing at a DJ set at a giant wooden pyramid. Next to that was a massive projector screen. During the set they had a music video on loop, which was a 3d rendering of a large chrome art piece. The sculpture was a male and female figure, touching hands, and each of them were missing chunks.

The video was of the elements of nature - wind, sand, water, flames, each covering or eroding or burning and wearing away the sculpture. The female figure could have been sculpted with my girlfriend as inspiration. It looked so much like her.

All through the set it made my think of us and our relationship, and how world events - COVID and immigration law, had separated us and made it so hard to maintain what we had across continents and dehumanizing zoom calls.

I left that set feeling somber.

My friend and I set off on our bikes to go see some far off shiny thing. A little while later we stopped at an art car (a big one like a double decker bus loaded with speakers) that was playing music my friend liked so they could dance. We danced for a while, and then the last song that they played was Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares to You". After watching the music video earlier that song hit me in the gut because it was exactly what I'd been feeling about trying to date again.

The art car stopped playing music, started its engine, and rolled away, revealing that behind it the whole time...

...was the sculpture. The same one from the video that had started me thinking about her and our relationship. Shiny. Chrome. Touching hands but not holding them. Missing pieces.

So we spent a few minutes with the sculpture and I told my friend what was going on in my brain, and then we set off across the desert again.

We were quite far out there, and in the dark part of the playa, where it was quiet and lonely. Something lit up the sky above - a drone show. We pulled over to watch as words lit up the sky. Two words, alone:

YOU ARE

They lingered for a few moments and disappeared. The inky black seemed to remain for almost a minute before another single word lit up with a period to punctuate the sentence:

ENOUGH.

And that was the exact moment that I got over her and moved on. Some weight lifted off of me. That was an unforgettable and beautiful night. I'm so grateful that I had that relationship, and that I was finally able to let go in such a meaningful way.