How to Heal When Life Makes It Hard

This post was published on March 10, 2018 on my old blog, samplesizedwriting.wordpress.com

Hello, I am still alive and I have returned after yet another hiatus due to what's shaping up to be my most stressful semester yet and my inability to figure out words for something going on in my life.

So, recently (but not all that recently, about a month and a half ago), a "relationship" (in quotes because it wasn't really but I don't have a better word for it) came to an end. At the time it didn't necessarily feel like an end, but I know now it was. And it kind of really hurt in a way I didn't anticipate because it was sudden and unexpected and also I suppose I didn't know just how much I genuinely cared for and about this person until suddenly he was no longer a part of my life.

The "relationship" itself was complicated and messy and communicating how we felt was not exactly something we were good at. But despite it all I think deep down I thought it'd work itself out because something just felt right with him. He had a personality I adored and he was the first person I wanted to tell anything to, good or bad. And it didn't help that all my friends, whether they immediately witnessed things firsthand at college or heard about them at home, expected it to work itself out, too. "There's too much there on both sides for it not to work itself out," said friends. One friend from home, who never even met the guy in question, said to me over Thanksgiving break, "You talk about him so much differently than you've talked about any guy that's ever played a part in your life, and I think that's really interesting. Don't know if that means anything, but it's just something I've noticed."

These little things people who are important to me picked up on started to add up, and that scared me because 1) I really didn't know how the guy in question felt and 2) I felt like maybe they were all right but I didn't know what to do with that because I was scared to admit that maybe I did really care for him in a way I never expected to. And it scared me because I didn't want to care that much because I felt like if I did, I'd set myself up for a pain I never expected to feel, either.

And I was pretty spot on with that one.

At the start of the semester, things got very messy very quickly. The guy in question had been gone for a long time but we talked regularly while he was away and when he came back, we reconnected. But a simple "let's grab dinner and catch up" escalated, and as quickly as we fell right back to where we were before he went away, he slammed the brakes so hard I swear I got whiplash.

"All that was a mistake and I think we should just be friends," he said.

I spent one night holed up in my dorm room, lying on my floor because it felt too hard to get into bed, listening to depressing music and crying harder than I have cried in a long time.

But just one.

I picked myself up, buried my feelings, and carried on.

Until last week when it was made apparent that he found himself a girlfriend, something I guess I could never be. And while my heart sank into my stomach, all my feelings were wrenched back up. And I really don't know the best way to make them go away again.

I don't really want to talk about it. I don't have words to describe how I feel about him or the situation, and I wouldn't know who would be best to talk to about it either.

I can't very well do away with him on social media. I do think that to some degree we want to remain in each other's lives. (But after seeing that select pictures posted can feel like a hard kick in the gut, I've elected to unfollow him on Instagram, at least for the time being, for my own sanity.)

And life itself seems to make it hard to get over it. Literally on (what I believe is) the anniversary of when we first met, I saw him in a place totally out of the ordinary, and it knocked the wind out of me. I don't think he even noticed me and I scurried away before I thought he could, but my chest hurt for hours after the encounter. And I'm pretty sure whoever is in charge of my fate laughed because why not throw in a cruel little joke, eh?

I don't really know what to do about it, and I don't really know when I'll be 100% again. I haven't felt entirely whole since the night in January when things fell apart and I don't know when I will feel whole again. And I don't really know where else to vent but here.

And please, if you've come this far in the post I do need you to know that there are SO many more details to this story and my feelings but I have left so many out because I sort of don't want to disclose everything nor do I know if I really need to disclose everything. But I know I had to disclose some things because writing is what I do and it helps, and because if people who care about me wonder why I've not been totally myself, this is why.

I feel like I've been holding my breath and I need to exhale, at least a bit. So this is my way of exhaling.

As for the guy, if you're reading this (because I know you can and very well may) please don't make a big deal out of this. I write, it's what I do (you know that), and it's what I needed to do. And yes, I suppose I did have feelings for you, silly me. But it's okay, I'll learn and grow and maybe be more confrontational next time a guy comes into my life that I want to stick around for a while. (You would tell me to be more confrontational, one of the things you hated was that I let myself be "a doormat.") And I hope you're good and happy and I hope we're cool, but I just had to be at least a bit honest with myself somewhere.

As for me, I don't quite know how to start to heal because life has made it a little hard, but I guess I just need some time and some space and some support from my friends.

As a movie I just saw stated, life is a Ferris wheel. Sometimes you're experiencing the highest highs and sometimes the lowest lows. It all goes around, and I'll get to the highest of highs again. It just will take a little bit of time.