Out of the blue I suddenly had a load of work to do. A huge project with an insane budget, phone calls, and lots and lots of work coming in at the same time. For a few hours straight I’m staring at two screens simultaneously and hammering away at my keys, writing things down on paper, jumping from project to project. When I’m busy, I feel great. I’m distracted in a good way as lots of things require my attention. It means I don’t have to think about other things.
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In a few days, I will be going to meet a friend who lives on an adjacent road to someone I used to date. I have visited his place before, and last time it was a nice and rather funny moment having to drive past the turning I usually took to hers, but this time, I’m feeling apprehension. I am now not with that person anymore, so that road is merely a place where they used to be. Yesterday I was so excited to drive down that road, and today I have to drive past it (figuratively for the days, literally for the driving). It may seem silly to react this way to something as seemingly mundane as driving past a road, but to me it represents so much more than some tarmac and painted lines. It’s the entire period of time that I spent with this person, and it’s a reminder that it is over.
I wish I didn’t get like this. Why do I need to be so sad about the past? There’s loads of good memories, but then I am reminded that they are finished. I do understand that the majority of my pain comes from thinking I won’t have good times again, and that I believe I am unworthy of basically any kind of positive or healthy attention from anyone, but it’s not enough for me to just understand why I get this way.
Even though I’ll be with my mate, and we’ll have a good time, I still feel this sense of lingering dread that I can’t shake. I feel like I’m going to walk into a minefield because I’m in her home town and it’s dotted with small moments that will trigger all my memories. I’m aware that this is an unnecessarily extreme emotional response to a situation, and that I need to overcome it for my personal growth. That’s why I’m writing about it here.
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I’ve recently been thinking about my desire to be seen. There’s this innate human need to know that we matter, and that we leave some sort of mark on the world and the people around us. It’s not self-centred, because in my case I don’t want constant attention, I just need some connection and validation that I exist, I feel, and I am here. I suppose a good word would be ‘acknowledgement’. I need my thoughts and experiences to matter to someone.
My stories, successes, failures; I don’t want them to be for nothing. I want people in my past to see that I have grown, that I am not the same person I was when they left me. Where does that need for closure come from? It isn’t to make people jealous, it’s to prove that I am capable without them. Why do I need to prove anything though? I don’t want to just be a distant memory for someone who still very much exists in my present.
I don’t want to just be a distant memory for someone who still very much exists in my present.
That actually sums up a lot of my post relationship problems. I struggle to grapple with the reality that they are a person who will move on and leave me to be a fragment of their past. I understand that I can’t hold onto people, that’s the latest development I’ve made, but now I have a fear of becoming an insignificant background character in their story when they played a leading role in mine. As time moves forwards, I still hold on to the late-night conversations and the challenges we overcame, and the way that I was finally truly understood and able to be my true self.
As time moves forwards, they will brush this all aside, it will be replaced with new people and new feelings. I don’t want to be erased like words written in sand getting washed away by the sea. I want my impact to be felt and remembered, I don’t want to be relegated to a footnote by someone who was an entire chapter to me.