Let me paint the picture for you:
It’s the afternoon. You are sitting on your couch with a pint of strawberry cheesecake ice cream in one hand, your phone in the other hand, and a spoon hanging out of your mouth as you stare at your text messages. He’s not gonna reply, the sane part of you thinks. You know, the part of you that told yourself six months ago that this was a bad idea. The part of you that made straight A’s last semester. The part of you that valued the opinions of your close friends and family. You quiet that part of yourself immediately. No! He’s just busy, you quickly defend. The defense comes so quickly, almost like you’ve been using it every day for too long.
As you sit there at 2 p.m. in your pajamas, you review the text message you sent three hours ago as you nervously wait for a response: you just laid everything out on the table. You told him how you felt, what you were looking for, and that you were done dealing with his inconsistent behavior. You FINALLY stood up for yourself. Your friends were thrilled, your parents were relieved, so why on earth did you feel so defeated?
“He’ll wake up and realize you’re done this time.” “He’ll see what he’s missing and come crawling back.” “He’ll change.” It’s what everyone said would happen, but instead, you’re left staring at a blank screen.
As young adults, I think almost every one of us can see this picture vividly. Maybe it was that time when you emailed your boss and demanded a raise after months of putting in long nights and hard work. Maybe it was when your best friend kept ditching you to hang out with her boyfriend and you no longer felt like an important part of her life. Whatever the scenario is that you're imagining, I'm sure you too had 'that moment'.
That moment where you realized what you wanted, knew what you had to do to get it, but the main thing that was holding you back; the main reason it took you so long to act or to finally address the situation was because you knew you were about to lose something.
For me, it was the guy on the other end of the phone. Let's be honest, I knew the reason I was in this situation was one hundred percent my fault. All along, I knew my friends were right and I knew the reason why I felt so uneasy all the time. Deep down (or maybe not so deep down) I understood that I could continue to go down the path of letting someone treat me not even half as good as what I actually deserve, or I could tell him I was sick of it and let him walk away.
After another hour, I gave up. I gave up on trying to finish the pint of Ben and Jerry’s because my appetite was surprisingly gone. I gave up making excuses for someone who constantly showed me everything but that they cared. And I gave up on looking at my dang phone. It wasn’t going to happen, and I remember feeling crushed as I had to accept the inevitable: he wasn’t going to respond.
I had put months of energy and effort into something that someone couldn’t even bother to comment on, yet with his silence, I heard every question I’ve ever asked myself about him finally being answered.
He acted like he didn’t care because he didn’t care; that was the bottom line.
In a world where communication is the number one key to a successful relationship, no matter what relationship that may be, we are encouraged to tell those in our lives when they're hurting us. We are told that "talking it out" will help solve our problems, and it normally does, but don't get the wrong idea. Communication isn't when you tell a person how you feel and they act surprised and reply with "I feel the same way!" and then you both live happily ever after together. Sometimes communication is the easiest way to fix a relationship, but it's also the most painful way to end one.
For me, I desperately wanted answers to my millions of questions that he had created for me, but by the looks of his silence, I wasn’t going to get the response I wanted. Emphasis on what I wanted, because I got a response. In my 8th grade English class, my teacher used to say, “by not responding, you are still responding”, and boy was she right. He was definitely responding, and through his silence, I heard his response loud and clear. That's the main reason why I felt torn apart. I wasn’t sick to my stomach because of the lack of response, it was because of how the message was delivered. There was no, “I can’t do this anymore,” or, “I need a break,” or even, "you are a crazy psycho, stay away from me”. Instead, he was saying, “you aren’t worth it,” “I don’t have time for you,” “this is never going to work out”, but he instead delivered his message through the most painful medium available: silence.
That's one thing that isn't labeled under Warnings when people tell you to, "just tell them how you feel." Sometimes, it's not so cut and dry. There will be times when you don't get a verbal response. There will also be times when you don't get the response you were looking for or what you wanted, but you will always get the response you needed. Maybe that response is from your boss and you didn't get that raise you wanted. Maybe it was from your best friend months later after you told her how it made you feel that she chose her boyfriend over you, but now he's just broken up with her and she needs you. It's when you get these answers that you really and truly evaluate your life. You choose to stay and fight for whatever it may be because it's worth it, or maybe you decide to walk away because you know there's something better out there, and this certainly isn't it.
It's when we come in contact with these moments that we can execute those make or break decisions in our life. These are some of the parts of our lives that seem the hardest at the time, but in the long run, these are the memories that we'll look back on and will be able to identify as the starting point of moving on, truly moving on.
