Lost. That’s how I felt when my three year relationship ended. The relationship that I thought was going to last forever. The relationship that I had clung onto, even though I knew it wasn’t healthy anymore. Sadly, that’s what love does to you sometimes. You get so caught up in it that you can’t see anything else. You can’t see that you don’t have your own interests anymore. You can’t see that he’s making you miserable. You refuse see that his heart isn’t in it anymore either, even though you know deep down that it’s not. You let him get away with hurting you because you tell yourself that if you can just get to the other side, you’ll be ok.
When we mutually decided to end things, I was okay at first. I knew it was the right thing. I thought we could still be friends and everything would be fine. That’s not how it worked out. He moved on really fast, and I started to feel like I was missing a limb. But that’s what happens when you lose something that’s been a part of you for so long. I got fed up with feeling down and sorry for myself. I knew that now was the time to find who I was again and to grow. I knew that there were so many things that I wanted to do that I hadn’t because I was being held back by my relationship, so I decided to do them.
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The first thing I did was join Her Campus at CNU. It was something I had been interested in all year but never had the guts to do. It was scary to join in the middle of the semester. I didn’t know anyone, and I was the newbie, but it was honestly one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve made some of my best friends and found my voice as not only a writer but also a person. I also really started to buckle down with school. I worked harder on my classes than I probably ever had before. It didn’t necessarily show in my grades (which was really disappointing), but it was one of the first times I could really say that I had done my best and pushed myself, even when I wasn’t feeling my best and was taking classes that I found really challenging. Because of that, I had a new sense of pride in my schoolwork, and started to feel like I could actually do the things I wanted to do. Then I got a really good internship over the summer and was taking 2 online classes. I put all of my energy into what I was doing and started to feel like me again, but different… better. I had never felt so empowered and confident before in my whole life.
This feeling continued into the new school year. I started doing things I never would have done before. I started to put myself out there more, I joined a sorority — something I was too scared to do before and became more involved in the things I was doing. I’m a completely new person. I hadn’t realized how dependent on him I had become until I had to face it. The girl that I was junior year of high school wouldn’t recognize the woman I’ve become my junior year of college.
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Breakups are really insanely hard, but sometimes they are the right thing. Had that relationship not ended, who knows where I would be now. Definitely not as happy as I am now. Yeah, there were a few really hard months there, but things are bright out here on the other side.