There's a reason I feel this way but does the reason matter?

If there were a breakup manual, a "Dump Him for Dummies," it would probably include a step where you send all of his stuff back to him. It happens in all the movies and my friends always send things back to their boyfriends when relationships end.

What if you aren't so sure it is over? What if you did not want it to end, but you thought you had to to cut your losses? What if you're still in love and you still want him to be the first person to know every single minute detail about your day?

I am sure you guessed it but yes, I am talking about me.

What a happy Thanksgiving it was. I broke up with my boyfriend.

He says he didn't see it coming. I had. For weeks, we had barely been in touch. I was wrapped up in my school work and writing and who knows what he was wrapped up in? He sure wasn't keeping me up to date. I felt like I was doing all the work in our relationship. And it got to the point where I wondered what I had done wrong, why he didn't seem to care anymore.

On Thanksgiving day, I decided I needed to be on my own. I made the choice that felt like the only right choice for me.

And god, was it hard. My mom said to do it like ripping off a Band-aid; quick and relatively painless.

There is no such thing as painless when a relationship comes to an end -- or at least a page break.

For a week now, I have wrestled every day with the urge to call him. Or Facebook him. Or IM him. Something, anything. Preferably to hear his voice.

But I do not know what he wants. As long as we were dating, we said that we would stay friends even if we broke up. Now I think that was just pillow talk, you know, those sweet things that give you hope while you're together but in the end have the same effect as lemon juice in a paper cut. It burns.

This part of my chest, the part where my heart is supposed to be, it burns.

I'm going to send him some of his things this weekend. Maybe, if I can work up the courage to even write a letter, I'll send a letter with the package that explains why I did what I did.

What the letter could not explain -- and what I have yet to figure out -- is whether I really miss him or am just lonely. It isn't that I don't care about him -- I really do love him -- but could the reason this hurts so much just be that without him, I don't know who will get me through this?

But since when does the reason behind the feelings matter more than the feelings themselves?