You must have told yourself silently move on. That’s enough. Get over it. You must have asked yourself a million questions, and you have one million questions left unanswered. Because sometimes, nothing seems to work.
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You have your days when you just wish you didn’t have to deal with this anymore. You encourage yourself with thoughts like “hearts are broken every day”. Or “everybody goes through breakups”. But tough as they are, they are also unique.
It’s particularly heart-wrenching if you’re one of those people who get really involved emotionally. When they’re in love, they put their heart and soul into the relationship because they know this outweighs the pain.
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And it does. But once we’re left to navigate through life alone, we wonder if we did the right thing. Maybe we should have been more guarded, cared less, opened our hearts just slightly. It would definitely hurt less now. But no, we chose to give ourselves fully, to love, to joy. We chose to really be there and be vulnerable.
Each one of us has connected deeply with someone at some point in their lives.
We thought we had finally found someone who will stay. That’s why it still hurts, even when we’re trying to move forward. What we’re experiencing is also a mourning process, mourning that something which has died when they walked away. The connection, our future together, the part of us that was with them.
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But here’s what most people do. They fake it till they make it. They sweep the truth under the rug, they numb themselves out so they feel nothing. For them, pain is too uncomfortable to deal with. So they get on with their lives as if none of it every happened, moving blindly and cowardly. Unaware that this is only temporary relief. The pain will return, and will become a darker, deeper wound. Until they gather so much hurt, anger and resentment they won’t be able to cope with anymore.
But emotional pain is there for a reason. You surely wouldn’t put yourself down if you hurt your finger and didn’t recover instantly. There is something in your body and mind that needs mending. You can’t stitch your broken heart back together on command. That is not how we work. To ease the pain, you have to let it manifest first, unfold. That is the only healthy alternative.
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So here’s what I would like you to do. Quit pretending.
Let go of the idea that you have to let them go now, forever.
It’s not realistic and it will make you feel guilty. You are only responsible for how you choose to respond to the pain you feel. Accept that healing doesn’t come over night, perhaps not even within a year or two. If you gave them your past and future, your whole life, how can you expect to just get over it? It wouldn’t be human.
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Be honest with yourself, even when you feel stuck. Choose to deal with it gracefully, with patience and much compassion towards yourself. Find someone you can talk to about this, pour your heart to them. Find that friend who will listen to you and build that bridge over troubled water. I promise you it will make all the difference in the world.
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