I was out with my friends the other night, and towards the end of the evening the conversation steered towards relationships, as it often does. They asked how I was doing and I told them that for the first time in a while, I was beginning to see things a bit more clearly. I said that I still feel bad, and that I don’t understand why it still hurts. It’s so unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before in terms of love and loss, I’ve simply never felt this way after a breakup (maybe it’s because we didn’t end by absolutely loathing each other). As we got talking, we started to get into why this particular relationship meant so much to me, and how I continue to suffer so greatly from its demise. They’ve all had breakups too, so their perspectives were helpful.
At this point, the emotions aren’t as overwhelming as they were when it was fresh. This means that I can analyse it with a bit more clarity, and what I’ve realised is that this has to be a much deeper-rooted issue than I initially thought for me to still be missing her. There are the obvious reasons which I won’t get into because that’ll make me feel worse, and I obviously do miss her support. Her leaving has also triggered my abandonment issues but these are problems that I am actively working through and more importantly, they aren’t the reasons why this shit is so bad. It might sound weird, but the real reason is that I actually wanted to be like her.
Seriously, she possessed the qualities I wished I had, or at least had more of, and that’s why I loved her so immensely and that’s what made me fall so hard for her. She was fiercely independent, unashamedly authentic, and effortlessly confident. She represented the positive attributes I wanted to see in me, traits that for whatever reason I did not possess. A beautiful, fun, exciting, interesting, deep, adventurous free spirit came like a tornado into my calm life. She brought with her a much-needed chaotic energy that gave me confidence, and with her I felt like I was being my best self, and of course I then proceeded to put her on a pedestal for it. I unintentionally attached my self-worth to her, and it became less about inspiration and more about association. It’s no surprise that when she left, I would feel emotionally stranded.
This was my fault, and none of this is easy to admit nor write about, but it is true and it needs to be said so that I don’t make this mistake again. Rather than admire the other person and live through them, I have to make sure that I make the changes I want to see within me. Now, recognising this is one thing, but solving it may take a bit more work. I need to fulfil my own needs and become the person I want to become. Just because she isn’t at my side, doesn’t mean I can’t believe in myself. I should look at her not as a loss but as a lesson, let this be the catalyst for me to grow and change as I want to. I’ll start by finally getting that tattoo.
*
Grief is not like a book that we can quickly read through and be done with, it’s like a plant. You can’t water it twice as much to make it grow twice as fast, it’ll probably drown. Trying to speed up the process is unnatural, working against the flow won’t get us where we need to be. Sadness, especially this sort of sadness, is a process that we go through and it’s one we all go through differently. Some people break up and get straight back into things, some take a little longer to recover. I don’t enjoy feeling bad so I used to try and solve the problem quickly, inevitably making it worse. I now understand that by allowing myself to feel this way, and by continuing to live my life, I will reach my equilibrium and come out the other end a better person.
It reminds me of when I was younger; I was quick to react emotionally to a situation that wasn’t going my way, typically with anger. Now that I’m older, I let go of a lot of things and find that the issue tends to solve itself without much interference. Normally whatever assumption I had was not fully correct, and most issues I face aren’t in need of an immediate solution. If I feel crap today, I’ll probably feel crap tomorrow so if I allow it to happen and don’t let ego cloud my judgement by telling me we need to feel great right now, then my emotions will naturally balance out.