Healing vs moving on...
We are obsessed, as a culture, with moving on. We want to move on from whatever bad thing happens in our lives and try frantically to move on to the next thing in the hopes that the newness will erase the pain from our past. We want to move on, we want our friends to move on, we want our celebrities to move on, we want our country to move on.
Move on.
Failure to do so makes you less than, deficient in some way, lacking something that everyone else clearly has. If I can move on with my life, why can't you? What is wrong with you?
To that I say: nothing. There is nothing wrong with NOT moving on right away. There is nothing wrong with mourning. There is nothing wrong with grieving. There is nothing wrong with trying to heal yourself before thrusting yourself into the next new thing.
I put pressure on myself for a lot of things. I am my own worst critic. I try constantly to measure up to some invisible bar that only I can see. I push myself. I punish myself. I make myself do things I think are the right things, the expected things. I let my friends tell me that I hold on to things too long. I tell myself they are right. And, I punish myself for my inability to let go at the pace that is "normal." Everyone else thinks I should be over it, so I should be over it, right?
I read a book a couple of weeks ago. It was nothing big, nothing deep, just a lesbian romance. The main characters have both been betrayed by their significant others. I rarely cry when I read, but I did. I identified with these women. I understood the pain, the anger, the voice that tells you it was your fault for making the other person lie, there is surely something wrong with you that they would be satisfied elsewhere, that you're not good enough. I identified with the difficulty of moving past that voice, the fear of being hurt again, and how fucking hard it is to sometimes even make a new friend after a betrayal of trust that deep. Finally, towards the end when one of the characters is feeling like a complete failure for not being able to just move on and find a new lover, her sister tells her that it's not a problem, that it can take up to two years to completely recover from a betrayal like that.
My first thought upon reading that was: Another year of this???????
But, it also makes sense. I think it's about right. I mean, it's obviously subjective. I'm sure some people don't need the full twenty-four months, and some people need more, but it makes sense.
I see pictures of my ex-girlfriend with her new baby, her boyfriend and she looks happy and it kills me. It still hurts and I hate that. I hate that I'm not over it already. I hate that I still feel it. I hate MOST of all though, that I can't move on with someone else the way it was obviously so easy for her to do. She has a new relationship and the merest hint of attraction to a woman sends me running scared in the other direction. It makes me feel like there is something wrong with me.
There isn't though. That's the thing. I've been measuring my "get over it" period against past break-ups and past broken hearts, but it's not the same. It was never the same. It's a different pain. There were different emotions involved. There was a betrayal involved. The healing period has to be different. When one thing heals, two new things reveal themselves. Two new things that I need to then start working on.
I am in no way ready for a relationship. And, I need to stop making myself feel like shit for it. I was so angry before and so hurt that I couldn't think of the good times in our relationship and now I feel like I'm bombarded with images every day of happy times. The times when we would fall asleep together holding on as close as possible and even if she woke up to go to the bathroom, she always came back and held me before going back to sleep. I remember waking her up with coffee in the morning and how hard it was to always get her to wake up, while I had already been up for hours. Making breakfast for each other. She even buttered and spread jam on my toast for me. Sitting on her porch, drinking beer, looking at the stars, talking, listening to music, laughing, teasing, making out. That first night we hung out: the sushi, the clothes she wore, the way she smelled, how we could have talked all night, how she made the first move and I couldn't get enough of her. The way we danced together. The way she always held me when we made up after a fight.
There was so much bad in that relationship. So much that was wrong with it, but I stayed for a reason. There was good there too. I think I'm finally grieving. It's not the same as the depression that I went through last year. I'm still me, just a little more thoughtful. I miss her, but not in the sense that I want to call her or email her. It wouldn't be the same. I miss how she was with me. What we were when we were togther.
I realize now that she did to me what her ex did to her. Someone hurt her and betrayed her and she did the same thing to me. Our relationship healed her, but it broke me and I wonder how is that fair? And, what if I do it to someone else? What if I get involved with someone and hurt them and break them? Granted, I'm more afraid of being the one who is hurt, but hurting someone else is also a fear.
I wonder if I'm broken forever because I'm tired of being afraid to pursue someone when I never hesitated before. I don't know. I know I have to let it play out though and stop making myself feel terrible about things I"m not ready for.
Move on.
Failure to do so makes you less than, deficient in some way, lacking something that everyone else clearly has. If I can move on with my life, why can't you? What is wrong with you?
To that I say: nothing. There is nothing wrong with NOT moving on right away. There is nothing wrong with mourning. There is nothing wrong with grieving. There is nothing wrong with trying to heal yourself before thrusting yourself into the next new thing.
I put pressure on myself for a lot of things. I am my own worst critic. I try constantly to measure up to some invisible bar that only I can see. I push myself. I punish myself. I make myself do things I think are the right things, the expected things. I let my friends tell me that I hold on to things too long. I tell myself they are right. And, I punish myself for my inability to let go at the pace that is "normal." Everyone else thinks I should be over it, so I should be over it, right?
I read a book a couple of weeks ago. It was nothing big, nothing deep, just a lesbian romance. The main characters have both been betrayed by their significant others. I rarely cry when I read, but I did. I identified with these women. I understood the pain, the anger, the voice that tells you it was your fault for making the other person lie, there is surely something wrong with you that they would be satisfied elsewhere, that you're not good enough. I identified with the difficulty of moving past that voice, the fear of being hurt again, and how fucking hard it is to sometimes even make a new friend after a betrayal of trust that deep. Finally, towards the end when one of the characters is feeling like a complete failure for not being able to just move on and find a new lover, her sister tells her that it's not a problem, that it can take up to two years to completely recover from a betrayal like that.
My first thought upon reading that was: Another year of this???????
But, it also makes sense. I think it's about right. I mean, it's obviously subjective. I'm sure some people don't need the full twenty-four months, and some people need more, but it makes sense.
I see pictures of my ex-girlfriend with her new baby, her boyfriend and she looks happy and it kills me. It still hurts and I hate that. I hate that I'm not over it already. I hate that I still feel it. I hate MOST of all though, that I can't move on with someone else the way it was obviously so easy for her to do. She has a new relationship and the merest hint of attraction to a woman sends me running scared in the other direction. It makes me feel like there is something wrong with me.
There isn't though. That's the thing. I've been measuring my "get over it" period against past break-ups and past broken hearts, but it's not the same. It was never the same. It's a different pain. There were different emotions involved. There was a betrayal involved. The healing period has to be different. When one thing heals, two new things reveal themselves. Two new things that I need to then start working on.
I am in no way ready for a relationship. And, I need to stop making myself feel like shit for it. I was so angry before and so hurt that I couldn't think of the good times in our relationship and now I feel like I'm bombarded with images every day of happy times. The times when we would fall asleep together holding on as close as possible and even if she woke up to go to the bathroom, she always came back and held me before going back to sleep. I remember waking her up with coffee in the morning and how hard it was to always get her to wake up, while I had already been up for hours. Making breakfast for each other. She even buttered and spread jam on my toast for me. Sitting on her porch, drinking beer, looking at the stars, talking, listening to music, laughing, teasing, making out. That first night we hung out: the sushi, the clothes she wore, the way she smelled, how we could have talked all night, how she made the first move and I couldn't get enough of her. The way we danced together. The way she always held me when we made up after a fight.
There was so much bad in that relationship. So much that was wrong with it, but I stayed for a reason. There was good there too. I think I'm finally grieving. It's not the same as the depression that I went through last year. I'm still me, just a little more thoughtful. I miss her, but not in the sense that I want to call her or email her. It wouldn't be the same. I miss how she was with me. What we were when we were togther.
I realize now that she did to me what her ex did to her. Someone hurt her and betrayed her and she did the same thing to me. Our relationship healed her, but it broke me and I wonder how is that fair? And, what if I do it to someone else? What if I get involved with someone and hurt them and break them? Granted, I'm more afraid of being the one who is hurt, but hurting someone else is also a fear.
I wonder if I'm broken forever because I'm tired of being afraid to pursue someone when I never hesitated before. I don't know. I know I have to let it play out though and stop making myself feel terrible about things I"m not ready for.