There she was.
A tall, gorgeous creature with an enviable mane who seemed to walk on air. We caught a glimpse of her as she dashed from one office to another.
I wished I was her. I mean, I would have given anything to be the woman my “boyfriend” had left me for. Oh, how I now shudder at my sheer stupidity.
I had gone so far off the cliff of human decency that I had dragged my best friend to the corporate office where the gorgeous creature worked just to see her.
To study her. To judge her. To decipher her mystery and figure out why she was the chosen one instead of my pathetic self.
Because I really did feel pathetic.
Worthless. Not beautiful. Undeserving to be chosen.
I was sure I’d end up an old spinster, knitting colorful mittens for donation, spending the sunset of my days latching onto memories of a love that was never meant to be.
I was 21. Young. Fresh.
A student of life, standing right in the middle of what I thought would be my most severe heartbreak yet. No one could convince me the sun would rise again.
But like all things, when the sands of time pass silently through the glass, you wake up and laugh at yourself — for thinking, feeling, and seeing everything through blurry lenses.
Now, two decades later, I know with certainty that surviving a soul-crushing breakup is possible. But most importantly, it leaves you with tons of powerful lessons.
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You can’t lay hold of anything with a clenched fist.
Had he asked to take me back, I’d have wasted not a single moment before saying yes.
Never mind that he’d left me in limbo. Like a thief in the night, he had walked away from me. Me, the girl he had once treated like a princess.
He had trashed the dreams we nursed for our future together. Our precious memories were left to desiccate in the hot sun of abandonment.
What made the emotional sting so brutal was that he had moved on without any sort of finality. There was no time for the dreadful breakup talk that often starts with “it’s not you, it’s me” (Hint, it’s always you)
I mean, I wished we’d have had one. Because the reality is that knowing something is better than floating in the abyss of ignorance. If I suck at love, I want to know, dammit.
But the truth is, some relationships end with no closure at all. Most people who have loved and lost can attest to this truth, and no matter how much you yearn for clarity from the person you swore to grow old together with, it just never comes at times.
You remain frozen in time while they hop into the next bus.
So, if you ever find yourself deep in the trenches of a breakup, remember that you may never get all the answers, and the worst thing you can do to yourself is waste time waiting.
Always remember that you can’t lay hold of anything with a clenched fist. As long as you’re still holding onto what was and what could have been, you’ll never discover what’s next for you.
When you’ve given people ample time to decide if they want to be in your life, and they fail to step up, then you must accept that that chapter is closed.
…
If you loved someone who caused you pain repeatedly, they will never offer you anything else but more pain.
That’s the blunt truth, and I’ve seen this firsthand from a close friend. Their relationship is a typical Sisyphean affair.
She fights hard to free herself from the latches of his emotional abuse. He comes crawling back, makes promises from here to heaven, and then a few months later, the same old monster rears its ugly head.
And though I know how stupid this is, I understand why she does it. The fear of being alone always wins over the pain of staying in a marital storm.
Where does one start? I mean, really?
If one is older, who knows how and where to start dating?
What about the disruptions and the inconveniences that come with change?
And yet, I’ll be the first to remind you that if they treated you like trash repeatedly, trust that they have nothing to offer you but the same old crap tomorrow.
The sooner you swallow that painful pill, the sooner you start to heal.
…
You already possess what you’re seeking from someone else.
One of the things I learned as I navigated the murky waters of my divorce years ago was that I had no control over what my then-husband would do.
I could pray, chant, cry my eyes out, call interveners from all corners of the village, and still, he would carry on and do whatever he wanted.
But I could decide to be a badass and keep it together. For real.
I could remind myself that I already possessed what I was looking for from him. I had the potential to be tough as nails if I decided. I could develop the tenacity and resilience to bounce back to the game of life if I chose to. It was all there.
In me.
The fact that I’m telling you this is proof enough of the path I opted to follow.
Am I saying this to brag? Nope.
I’m saying this to convince you you’re the only one capable of saving yourself. You’re all you’ve got. Quit wasting your valuable years expecting the person who hurt you to change. People are who they are.
…
Hiding from the world — and gorging on endless bags of Oreos- won’t heal you.
We process breakups differently.
Some of us suddenly turn into social butterflies, partying day and night. I mean, anything to numb the discomfort of staring the truth in the face.
But for most of us, the opposite is true.
We stop showering.
We eat Oreos all day and stuff our couches with pizza crumbs.
We forget where we kept our combs.
We never draw the curtains.
We stink.
We forget that the sun shines every day without fail.
If this is your go-to mechanism for handling a heartbreak, remember this; hiding from the world won’t heal you either.
If you lick your wounds in solitude for too long, eventually, you’ll be trapped in crippling thoughts. Unhealthy nostalgia is a real thing. And it can drag you down and immobilize you.
I say find something to do. Walking off those Oreos can be an excellent place to start. Declutter your closets. Offer to walk your neighbor’s dog. Phone someone you haven’t spoken to in a while.
…
Please, please, please, never allow another human being’s rejection to trigger self-rejection.
If there was something I’d say to my 21-year-old self, it’s this:
Please, please, please, never allow another human being’s rejection to trigger self-rejection.
Love makes us do silly things at times. We grade ourselves according to how our lovers see us. We forget that before they entered into our lives, we were. And long after they leave, we will be.
So before you allow others to tell you who you are, remember you have a continuous personal responsibility to define yourself. The blank canvas is yours. Not your boyfriend’s. Not your girlfriend’s.
So if they one day choose to walk away, you will find your crown from under the bed, remove the cobwebs, dust it off, and polish it up.
Your high self-worth is inherent. It’s part of who you are, whether you feel it or not. Whether it seems that way or not.
Ask anyone who has crossed over to the other side of a breakup, and most will attest to the fact that, at times, it takes heartbreak to yank you into reality and show you that you’re worth waaaay more than you’ve allowed yourself to settle for.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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