“I like you, but I
can’t really see us going any further in a relationship.”
The words hung there in the air while I numbly sat holding
the phone to my ear, ineffectively trying to grasp the words that he just said,
and process what it would mean for my future.
Several years ago, I fell in love with my best friend. This
man was my world. He taught me so much about myself and about the world around
me. Due to circumstances in our lives, we had to be apart for a time, and in
that time, he came to decide that “he couldn’t see us going any further”.
Hearing those words come from his lips shattered me. Everything that I held
dear, my hopes, my dreams, and my future were destroyed before my very eyes.
I tried to heal, but this particular kind of pain was one
which was deeper than I had ever felt previously. I wasn’t sure how to go about
picking myself back up. One year went by, and I still hadn’t progressed very far.
The stress of it all began to take its toll. I rarely slept, my grades dropped,
my hair began to fall out, I could hardly keep anything I ate down, and I lost
40 pounds within the year.
Worse than any of that, I lost my very best friend; someone
who had helped me through it all and was more like a sister to me couldn’t take
it anymore. It seemed I was waiting for
myself to be completely healed before putting myself back out there again and
by doing so, I was spiraling further and further down. It was as if I was
somehow hoping she or someone else could save me or have the answer I was
desperately looking for as to how to get out of the mess I was in.
It was her turning her back on me and walking away that woke
me up. In that moment, I felt I had nothing left to lose, so I began pushing
forward, trying new things, and meeting new people. That’s when I began to breathe again, to come back to life. I
finally could see all of the opportunities I had ahead of me, and all the ones
that I had lost, and determined never
to let that happen again.
This past year, my resolve was tested. Over the time that
had passed, a new man had entered into my life. I loved him more than I ever
knew it was possible to love another human being, and would have loved nothing
more than to marry and spend the rest of my life with him. Then, it happened
again. I watched once more as someone who had become a very real and vital part of
my life, turn and walk away. This time around, being done in a way that was a lot
less classy and did nothing whatsoever to spare or protect my feelings. He had
what he wanted, and that was all that mattered to him.
Taking the blow from this hit was even harder than the last
time.
I wanted nothing more than to give up, to shrink back, curl
up into a corner somewhere and shout “I quit! I can’t do this anymore.” But
that determination, that voice in the back of my head kept me going. I was not going to let my life pass me by. I
kept pushing forward even when it seemed pointless or when I couldn’t seem to
see where the path I was on would take me.
I still have those moments where I want to quit, but let me
tell you, the path I’m on now may not take away the pain, but it is a far better path than the one I was on
years before; the one where I had stopped in my tracks.
You do not have to be
done with, over, or completely healed from one situation in order to begin
another chapter in your life.
You do not have to be totally over a best friend walking out
of your life in order to begin forming new friendships with others, have fully
processed the death of a loved one before stepping back out into the world, or
have completely healed from a lost romantic relationship before opening the
door for the possibility of another one to develop. Because chances are, you
may never completely get over some of those situations, at least not in this
lifetime, or anytime in the near future. They have changed your heart and
shaped who you have now become.
That is not to say to jump into such things before you have
had some time to heal. You and your
emotional well-being need that. But let’s be honest, no one is ever really
completely ready to let go of what they had before, until they actually take that
first step forward towards something else.
Time does not stand still. If we were to wait until we were
completely healed from every big emotional situation we have been through in
life before moving forward, we would
never move and life would pass us
by.
At some point, we need to put ourselves out there again. The more you treat your heart like an
injured one, the more it will become such. There is no predictor as to how
long it will take to heal from a situation, but the more you step outside of
that comfort zone and test it out, the more you will be able to gage when you
will be ready and what your heart needs to heal.
Emotions are meant to
be felt. Life is meant to be lived. I cannot stress that enough.
