There will always come a time where you have to stop. Where you have to start over. Where you have to dig yourself out of a hole that seems higher every time you think you're near the top. This experience isn't special to one, it is something we all go through. Yet, somewhere in our fast-paced and secretive culture, we stopped talking about it. "Ish happens," we say, and then push it aside. It's not healthy, and it surely isn't real.
Here's the thing. No one ever really forgets about it. Whether it's ending a relationship or a long chapter of your life, leaving feelings behind is sloppier than we like to admit. Take breaking up with an SO, for example. Maybe the break was clean, maybe it was ugly. But the assumption is that the aftermath will be fine if you just avoid that person. Except you can't escape them. Everywhere you turn, every person you run into, asks. Your friends want to know, out of concern and nosiness, just why you ended it. So you have to explain. Over and over again, when you may not even know the answer yourself. There's never one reason!
And what about the actual aftermath. Trying to tell yourself you did the right thing. Repeating to yourself at night that it wasn't you and you can be happy again. Then starting a new day and seeing they moved on before you. Realizing that maybe you didn't deserve them and that they don't deserve her. That you need to work through issues you never knew you had until your heart tore open and locked up insecurities flowed out. The terrifying possibility that you might never find someone who won't hurt you.
The truth about ending it isn't sweet or a Sarah Dessen novel. It isn't over in a minute, but it also won't take a lifetime. If we change the way we perceive love, as less of a miraculous phenomenon and more of a practicality, falling in and out won't be as earth shattering. We need to take the media construed aspects of love and breaking up and toss them. Even the realness of "Girl Code" doesn't give the full spectrum of dating and the works of breaking up (though I do reference them for guidance from time to time).
The truth about ending it is this: you won't see it coming, it will hurt like hell and it won't heal easily. But it's doable. It's survivable. In any instance, you can be sparked back to happiness by a good book, a perfect night with friends or even a new love. So don't close yourself up to those experiences. You have to keep living through it, the best way you can without sacrificing your emotion.
