A year is a long time. 365 days, 52 weeks, 8,760 hours and 525,600 minutes long. A year is also a time where a lot of change-whether wanted or non-wanted-can happen. For me, my life drastically changed within this year. I moved away to attend a college six hours away from my family, joined a sorority where I knew no one, met new friends, got rid of some old friends, and lastly, met a boy who would become my boyfriend and then subsequently, become my ex-boyfriend.
Change can be scary, anxiety-filled, and confusing. It can sometimes be good and healthy, but other times it can be truly awful and painful. However, no matter what kind of change I experience, I'm a firm believer that it has a purpose. The saying "everything happens for a reason" used to make me so angry; I thought it was insensitive and cheesy but in reality, it's true.
Here are the three steps I take when I need to move on despite not wanting to:
Accept your pain.
I am a very emotional person and am physically unable to hide my feelings. It's easy for me to show my pain, but hard to accept it for what it is. After a breakdown in the shower or a venting sesh with one of my friends, I tend to feel embarrassed and silly. However, I remind myself that there are no set guidelines that teach want you're supposed to do when you're upset. Your emotions are validated and the ways you express them is strictly up to you.
Looking at the good and the bad for what they were.
The bad in my life somehow always trumps the good; a million, amazing things could happen to me and then I have one hiccup and my life's a "mess." It can be easy to be sucked into this mentality, but it is important to understand that no one's life is perfect no matter how perfect it may seem. Ending a relationship can feel like the end of the world (trust me I know), but it is important to take that experience and use it to your advantage. You can't just expect to be your fully formed, knowledgeable, experienced self without going through some stuff. A breakup sucks. It truly does, But don't let the experience go to waste.
Accept that things won't be easy.
I love routines, having a schedule, and planning out my every move. When something drastically changes any of those three, I freak out. I utterly and enormously freak out. At the moment, it feels like everything is crashing down around me and like I'll be miserable for the rest of my life, but I have to remind myself that life isn't easy. It's not supposed to be easy. Life is supposed to teach you how to adapt to unwanted situations, recognize that things won't always work out the way you wanted them to and that it's solely up to you on how you approach things. The process towards acceptance is hard, long, and draining. But once you make it to the other side, all that pain, anguish, and confusion becomes worth it.
It's important to keep in mind that your world isn't over. You may be sad for the time being but things will get better. More importantly, you will get better.
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