Living for Me, Not for Someone Else

Two months ago, my ex-boyfriend of three years and I broke up. It was hard, but honestly, it was the best thing for me. I know this sounds bad, but just hear me out. 

Being in a long-term relationship, I learned a lot. I learned how to love someone other than family or friends, but I also learned to love myself. The biggest lesson was learning that you cannot fully love another person until you truly love yourself for who you are. 

If you cannot be comfortable loving all parts of yourself for who you truly are, then you won’t be able to love someone else. But with this being said, I thought that I had truly loved myself for who I was, but as it turns out, I changed a lot in this relationship, and parts of myself that I did not always love became suppressed.

It’s not that he did not love them or that I did not love them fully, but when I changed these parts of me that made me whole, they almost got left behind in a way. 

I became quieter and more distant from people. I spent most of my time with him, just doing things we loved together. I stopped going out with my friends all the time and doing things with them. In a way, I stopped doing the things that made me myself and essentially stopped having fun.  

But once we broke up, I changed again. I learned how to be more independent and how to be comfortable by myself. This change was hard; he was my best friend and boyfriend for the last three years, and I had to learn to live without him. 

The change was also good; the parts of my personality that had been suppressed started to come out. I started to live more on the edge and not care as much about what people thought of me. I started living for me, not for someone else. 

I started to have more fun, do more things, and go out more often with my friends, and grew closer to the people around me. It brought out my personality more. It broke the shell I had built around myself because I was comfortable with who I was and who I was with. It made me feel like it was okay to be uncomfortable and allowed me to fully let go of who I used to be. 

It was hard, yes, but I am grateful because I would not be who I am today without it. If you had told me two months ago that I would be okay by myself and not care about what other people thought, I would probably look at you like you had four heads. 

But that’s because when it first happened, I felt like my whole world was falling apart. Dramatic? Yes, but that’s honestly how I had felt. I truly did not know how to navigate life being single. 

But now I do, and now that I have been doing it for a couple of months, I could never imagine myself going back to the person I used to be. The person that I had suppressed parts of my personality for someone else. So yes, the breakup was hard, but I don’t think I would want it any other way for right now. 

• #breakup
• #finding yourself
• #relationship
• #self love