For everyone who reads my articles, they’ll understand that I’m in the process of moving on from my previous relationship. Honestly who isn’t at this point in our lives? So midway through Fall Break, I’m going to, as cliché as it sounds, do me for me.
Like many others who have been in my position, I have gone through the process of hating the person and then feeling intense grief. I’ve gone through the relationship countless times in my head, asking myself all the same questions. What went wrong? If I hadn’t done this, would things be different? Was it even as substantial as I thought? Why, in the end, did we ultimately fail to do what seemingly countless people around me are able to do—have a healthy and functional relationship?
I’m aware how counter-productive these trains of thoughts typically go. For awhile, I deceived myself thinking that I merely wanted to understand our relationship. But at this point, there is nothing really to understand. Things happened in an unfortunate way, but this is where he and I are in our lives.
In addition to my own internal dialogue, I’ve also dealt with the appropriate amount of space. Breaking up on a college campus is difficult, but particularly difficult at a school of 3,000 students where your ex-boyfriend happens to work with you, have the same friends, and be in multiple classes with you. While I know that I need space in order to move on, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed.
Like many others, I’m daunted by the fear that not only am I losing someone who cares about me, but someone who was my best friend. But a wise person (my Mom) told me that there is no loss. It’s just the way relationships go: there are ebbs and flows to any relationship, whether it’s a friendship or romantic relationship. So now is just an adjustment period to a new sort of relationship I’ll have with this person.
While it’s easy to wallow and feel a sense of loss from a relationship, it’s important to remember that one can’t think of “this person” as the right person. There’s a reason things didn’t work out and things will work out again for you some point down the road. When you love another person, you can describe the describable things about why you love them—maybe something they’ve said or something they’re passionate about.
But there’s always a component in love that is inexplicable. And just as some of the reasons why you love another person are inexplicable, so is moving on. It’s inexplicable how and when and why you move on. You gradually feel better and one day you wake up, and realize that things are and will be okay.