This is a sad one, but while sad it is necessary. A thing that I have learned in the post-breakup months is that as time goes on, harsh realities that you were not able to see or admit to yourself while fully submerged in that relationship slowly creep up on you bit by bit, making themselves more clear and known.
After you are ripped away from that love, that friendship, that bond, and that life as you knew it, realities start to hit you that you could not have seen prior to the exit of that relationship i.e. prior to the entering of the dark, scary, misery of breakup land. Maybe it will be through a conversation with a friend, or maybe through a conversation with a new crush. Sometimes these things will hit you when listening to a certain song, or while you are on one of your killer steam-blowing runs.
Let me state this clearly: realizing the truth can often times hurt more than you would ever expect.
No wonder we hide away from those truths for years at a time, refusing to see them for what they are. Because they hurt. They are the brutal truths that contradict everything you thought you knew. The truths that prove that in fact breaking up with this person was actually the best thing you could have done. It's funny how this can be simultaneously one of the most tragically sad, heart-wrenching realizations and also one of the most freeing and reassuring moments of clarity.
The small bits of realizations come to you, piece by piece, over time and during small everyday experiences. They arrive unannounced, make you stop and go, “Oh…” with a sullen heaviness. You enter into a foreign moment of honesty with yourself. This self-reflective honesty is a place you’ve only heard about from those enlightened people.
While I believe that self-deception is innocent, it's detrimental. You do it to maintain a relationship that you believe, with your whole heart, is the most important thing in your life. The biggest love. You turn a blind eye, convincing yourself of a completely different reality, one that fits better to your liking. And then one day you open your eyes and you see the truth you have been avoiding for far too long.
These are what some of my realizations have looked like.
There is a solid chance that you loved him more than he loved you. Ouch right?
You gave way too much of yourself to him and your relationship.
He simply is not the person that you wanted him to be.
More important, he simply is not the person you wanted him to be, and that is unlikely to change.
Remember those times when your loved ones told you in consolation that you deserve fully what you want and need? They were actually right, to a severity that you previously did not comprehend.
It is sad, but more and more each day you know this separation is the right thing. Somehow this is one of the most difficult truths to come to, and yet one of the most important.
So let the truths come to you, in small doses. These realizations hurt, yes, but they also move you forward.
