It’s a pain you see other people go through. You think, “If it happens to me, I’ll be able to shrug it off.”
Then it happens. It happens to you.
One day you have this person who is your best friend. You share every detail of your life with them, they know everything about you, they’re like your human diary. You instinctively reach for your phone any time something happens, because they were the first person you told. Then, just like that, they're gone. They reject you.
Rejection from an individual is perhaps one of the cruelest forms of rejection. You might be rejected from a school, a job, or an organization; however, that rejection, although it can feel excruciating, is not as cruel as rejection from another human being. This is because that person isn’t a life opportunity like a job is, that person is woven into your life.
It’s cruel because you don't see it coming. With a job or a school, there is always that given possibility of rejection. But with a person you’re comfortable with, it doesn’t seem as if there is any possibility. Even if it happens quietly over time the rejection seems abrupt, sudden, and out of nowhere. Sure, there may have been signs, but it seemed as if the full rejection would never come. It couldn’t come because you had promised to each other that rejection was out of the question.
The rejection that accompanies a breakup is personal. It makes you stare in the mirror wondering what was so inherently wrong that they walked away. It makes you go through scenarios in your mind over and over, wondering what you could change. It gives you a sense of inadequacy and leaves you never wanting to place yourself in a situation where personal rejection could occur again.
A recovery from the pain of this form of rejection is dark, gruesome, and full of moments of weakness. Moments where you want to reach back out to them in hopes of restoring what had been or at least getting more closure. But there is no amount of closure that will provide a sense of peace about the situation. The recovery is one of realizing that you were made perfectly, you are loved, and you will have better days. Don’t be so afraid of losing them, that you lose yourself. And remember, love never fails, so if it failed, it wasn’t love.
