How to Finally Forget About Your Ex

I fell in love one time too.

It was stupid. It was typical.

It wasn’t interesting, but it was intense.

She told me I was the love of her life, and I, a naive 23-year-old at the time, believed her. She told me all kinds of wild things, and I believed every word out her mouth like she was speaking the holy scripture. It was a time when I needed hope, and she gave it to me.

She was a master of persuasion and she knew how to push my buttons.

But now, she’s gone.

Here we are, one year later. I haven’t heard from her in more than 6 months. I haven’t thought about her in a minute, but the other day, her memory hit me hard… again.

Fuck.

I can’t forget her. I wish I could forget her. I wish I was in that movie, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.

Except there’s one problem: I learned in that movie that you’re not supposed to forget the people you once loved, even if it hurts to not forget them.

You’re supposed to learn from them.

This sounds nice in a self-help-esque Medium article, but it seems to be insanely hard to do in real life. It’s really hard to forget people who you care about. It’s hard to move on, but here’s how I did it.

Is it love or are you high?

I think, in this case, it was love.

At least, for me, it was love.

Or maybe I was just really high.

My ex who I broke up with last year was the first woman who I really loved. It was the first time I really loved a person who isn’t my mom, my dad, or my sister. I know I really loved her because still, after everything we went through, I can’t hate her or even be mad at her.

I know I loved her because I kept trying to convince myself that I wasn’t in love.

This love was a neurochemical hijacking in a way I had never experienced before, and though the breakup was more than a year ago now, I still miss her a lot.

I’ve dated other people since her, but I still miss her. “There’s plenty of fish in the sea”, but I miss her.

I would take her back right now, even though doing it would probably be a horrible decision. Even though taking her back would destroy my mental health, drain the life out of me, and break me down, I know that if she showed up at my doorstep I couldn’t resist her.

I’m only 24 and I don’t know that much, but I don’t think love is always rational. I would want to take her back, but I shouldn’t. I probably shouldn’t ever see her again.

I probably won’t ever see her again. I loved this girl so damn much, and I’ll probably never see her again.

Still, I miss it. She was sweet and sensitive, yet strong and determined. She had the duality and complexity that I’ve always craved in a partner, and I miss that so much.

But she also had this dark side that terrified me to the point where my body and mind physically shut down in her presence. She and I both changed a lot in the time we were together, and eventually, we grew apart.

We grew apart, but that doesn’t mean I lost the memories.

For a long time, I wanted the “spotless mind”, just like in the Jim Carrey movie.

I still remember when she held me one December afternoon in Milwaukee and made me feel like I didn’t have to fight my way through every moment of my life anymore. I still remember when we would sit together on Saturday afternoons after Jiu-Jitsu training and read together. I still remember when we went on drives and talked about Nietzsche, Buddha, and Viktor Frankl.

I still miss that stuff, but it’s gone now.

Anyway — sorry for my sob story.

The point I’m trying to make is that sometimes I wish I could just rip these memories out of my head so that I didn’t have to miss this girl who probably doesn’t even think about me anymore.

That’s probably the part that hurts the most. I’m sure she’s moved on.

I moved on too, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.

This past breakup forced me to change the way that I approach moving on.

In the past, I’d break up with someone and drown myself in work and training to forget them, just long enough until I stumbled upon the next girl who I could go through the same toxic cycles with.

This past breakup cut me so deep that I had to actually grow. I couldn’t lie anymore.

I had to forgive her for hurting me. I had to forgive myself for not being good enough and not knowing enough. I had to forgive all parties involved, but I never forgot any of what happened.

The ending hurt so bad that I had no choice but to carefully analyze each mistake each of us made so that I could ensure that it wouldn’t happen again. I couldn’t sleep for weeks after it happened, so I had all kinds of time.

This past breakup changed the way that I view every single person I interact with.

It made me more careful, more mature, and more protective of my own peace. I won’t throw myself at anyone without a bloody care ever again. I don’t want to forget those valuable lessons.

Closing thoughts

I don’t want this girl’s memory to haunt me forever, but I don’t want to forget the moments that made me feel so happy and in love.

After the breakup, I found myself desperately chasing women in an effort to replace the feelings that I had when I was in love, but no one could satiate my rabid insecure child the way she did. This meant to me at the time that I needed to get her back, so I tried to do that.

Long story short, it didn’t work.

In time (time is the best breakup medicine), I realized that with practice, I could love myself the way my first love loved me.

I eventually realized that I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, I was looking for validation and protection. It didn’t take a therapist to figure out why that was something I felt was lacking.

With practice, writing, mindfulness, and most importantly genuine self-sufficiency, I was able to patch up the hole in my heart.

Hopefully, with more time, I’ll be able to truly open my heart again.

Until then, I’m gonna focus on writing and pajama fighting.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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