"Just move on."
"It's not that important, move on from it."
"They aren't worth it, move on."
Move on. Move on. Move on.
You want the truth about moving on? It's a truth we all know, moving on is way easier said than done. You can look at your crying friend and say, "You just have to move on," because it's easy for you, but for them moving on sounds impossible. We all think that those are comforting words, or at least encouraging ones when we say them, but we know we hate to hear them.
In reality moving on is similar to the Greek mythology story of Sisyphus. He was condemned to an afterlife of pushing a boulder up a hill and then watching it roll down, only to have to push it back up again. That's what moving on is. We get so close to being done, we're right at the top, and then with one text or tweet or Snapchat, our boulder rolls right back down to the bottom. If you've ever tried it, you know moving on is an everyday battle. Some days you wake up and your fine, other days you wake up after a dream you've had and everything hurts. When you're moving on, you're in a constant state of motion and you don't stop until finally, finally, you're done.
When we're telling someone to move on, we have their best interests at heart. We just want them to be happy because we know whoever hurt them just really wasn't worth it, but I think we also forget just how hard it is to move on and how hearing those words does nothing but anger us. Of course, your friend knows that another person isn't worth this much trouble, but telling them that only devalues their feelings. We all know we just need to forget and be happy and stop being upset, but we also know that it only makes us feel a thousand times worse when someone tells us that. The person trying to move on already feels bad enough about feeling bad, don't keep pushing them, it only makes it worse.
Moving on is a lot longer process than we think it is, years can pass and you can still not have fully and completely moved on, and the truth is, maybe we never completely move on from some people. That's what makes moving on so hard, it's never consistent. Some people you forget about in months, but some people you just can't ever seem to get over. There's no right way or easy way to move on. You can delete them from your social media and block their number, but still, they come up. You can try and be civil and nice and be their friend and that can work until you have to watch them fall for someone else. It's painful, it's sad, it makes you angry, and no one can just move on.
While moving on is not easy, it's possible, we all know it, but we have to give our friends time to do it. Some people take more time than others because we all form attachments differently. Telling someone to move on won't magically fix all their problems, and pushing them only makes it worse. Give people time, let them heal in their own way. Eventually, they'll heal enough to where they can find themselves and will be able to open up to someone again. Eventually, they will move on, just give them time, support, and a shoulder to cry on.
