On Breakups

This post is not going the way I planned. Frankly, my plan wasn’t too developed either as it’s quite a sensitive topic for me, but I want to address this for my future self. Please bear with me if this post is all over the place (like my emotions) but I want to speak from the heart so here goes. Two months ago I got out of what we will call a relationship. I prefer to call it my “situationship” or my “connection” as we never did the asking out thing, but in the end it was all the same. It was close to 10 months of my life being in love with the same person, trying to make it work with this one person, hoping that we would make it somehow despite the distance. And by distance I mean both physical as well as emotional. You see, I met him a year ago this month, on the 20th, and things picked up right from the start. I admit in the moment I wasn’t scared (although we did both agree it was crazy), but once I moved back to the U.S. fear and my self-sabotaging habits inevitably kicked in.

Yet, somehow I pushed through these fears and ended up really trusting this person, really believing in them and us, and the idea that this could be forever. It was a first for me, wanting forever with someone and actually seeing it happen. It wasn’t the only first though. I’m not one to trust so quickly nor one to accept that how someone says they feel about me as the truth. I just don’t trust anyone- not that fast, at least. But with him it just happened, albeit with work on his part too. I let my guard down- another first- and decided that if I wanted this relationship to work I’d have to be entirely different than how I’d been in previous relationships. I feel that this worked, but of course this is debatable as we broke up in the end. Let me explain why I feel this worked.

For once, I don’t feel the guilt that I do when things end with someone. You know, the guilt that says you could’ve tried harder, been more open, been more patient, more understanding. I did what I could with what I was given and what I personally stood to give. Of course there will always, always be room for improvement with anything; but in this particular case I don’t think I could’ve given more as I wasn’t being allowed to. I’m not here to trash anybody, especially not someone that I love, but it’s true when they say that people can only love you as well as they know how. Maybe I expected too much from him, or maybe he switched up on me the moment I let my guard down. I won’t discuss these points because in the end they’re irrelevant, although I do think it’s wise to reflect when things end. That’s ultimately the point of this post: at the end of the day, what did you learn from this experience? Answer: I learned so. damn. much. Enough to write an entire other blogpost on it actually. But for now all I can say is that while I miss him, I also understand why things ended; I was only able to do this after crying it out, venting to my friends, and then reflecting on it though. But now here we are.

So tell me: what have you learned about yourself after the end of your most recent relationship? What did that experience teach you? I’d love to hear!

xo