I was in love once, but it’s been a while since I’ve been in love. Honestly, I've started to forget how romantic love actually feels. Like the scent of someone who passed, or the feeling of the carpet in your old bedroom, it slowly fades until it is more of an image that a reaction. There are points in our lives when sensations becomes memories, and our inability to feel what we used to feel causes frustration or heartache. Sometimes I wish I could feel the way I did when I was 5 years old, and sometimes I wish I could feel the way I did when I was young and in love, but this desire to go back in time or reclaim something that is no longer ours to claim holds us back from experiencing the next thing we won't want to let go of.
I broke up with my boyfriend two years ago, and it took me 6 months before I could even think about other guys. The whirlwind relationship, turned long-distance relationship, took up three years of my life, but like most teenage romances it didn’t pass the test of time. I was in love, the kind of love that makes you want to hold a person tighter than physically possible because you want your bodies to somehow fuse together. It was the kind of love that had me smiling at my phone and dancing around my room. When we were together we were safe, and there was nothing we wanted or needed outside of our embrace. It was the kind of love that made Taylor Swift famous and bitter 20-somethings roll their eyes. It was romance, it was powerful, and honestly I thought it was the only time in my life I would ever get to feel like that.
The devastation I felt after our breakup made me believe I could never love again. I lost my best friend, and I lost every dream we shared along with him. We were hometown friends, so I imagined a sweet wedding filled with the people we’ve both known and loved forever. I had developed my own relationships with each of his family members; and losing his family, which felt like an extension of my own, was as painful as losing him. It was weird to think that my future was completely open. I had to mourn the future that would never be; I had to mourn our future marriage and our future children. It felt like grief. Some days were fine, but others I would burst into tears at random moments. My heart ached for months and I developed a new perspective on love. I had gone from a hopeless romantic to a realist. I truly believed that it was impossible to love someone with that same passion we have at 18, what I didn't realize is that there might be something better.
The hardest part of the breakup was letting my ex move on without harassing him (which is not as easy as it looks). I wanted to sabotage every chance he got to move on because I wasn’t ready to, but guess what? That is not fair. Honestly, watching him find someone else was the most freeing and painful moment of our breakup. While I wanted to ruin it and remind him how much he missed me, I also felt like I had to move on because the hope of us getting back together was getting more and more distant. In the panic that ensued, I did what any young, single girl needs to do after a breakup: I made a Tinder. I had to let myself get hit on by men who I did not find interesting, I had to go on good dates and bad dates, I had to spend time with other guys even though I compared each of them to my ex and none of them measured up. But how could they? I was barely giving them a chance because my heart was still set on reconnecting with my first and only love. I would complain to my mother about the lack of men that approached me, and she told me that they could tell I was on hold. Why would someone want to invest time and energy on someone who was still imagining a future with someone else? I was not open, and while I didn’t notice, everyone else around me could sense it. But dating is frustrating! We want to fall in love so bad, and the movies make us think that we are meant to be swept off out feet. But guess what? No one can sweep you up into their arms if you are still tied down to what could have been.
It's not about finding someone else to love. I am not an advocate of serial-dating or rebounding, but it is important to open yourself back up. It doesn't have to be romantically, but spending time with other people will remind you of their potential. Instead of wallowing in the image of your ideal love, get out there and let love come to you. Deny it, embrace it, do whatever you please; but sometimes we just need to realize that there is more, even if at first it doesn't compare. It's like a pair of sneakers; sometimes we need to throw out that lucky pair and break in a new one to keep from twisting our ankles or breaking through the bottoms. The pair that made you fall in love with the game, the pair that won you all those games, that pair's time has come; and the more pairs you go through, the longer you get to keep playing.
My ex and I had three years together, plus an entire high school career’s worth of memories and friendships; I truly believed we knew each other better than we knew ourselves, but we didn’t. We were in a bubble that revolved around itself. We could only grow so much within the space that we created; and we didn’t realize it, but we were suffocating. Like a child leaving the womb, it was terrifying and shocking, but boy, the potential was infinite. After a breakup, we have to relearn how to navigate that potential on our own. THAT is why it feels so lonely, and that is why it feels like your earth is crashing down. But it’s not your world that’s crashing; it’s that glass bubble shattering and the world opening up around you. People will notice you; they will want more of you and more from you. And once you warm up to the bright lights and loud noises of this world, you will want more from it. Soon you will find your balance and move forward, and one day you will realize you stopped looking back over your shoulder for support. You will start looking forward, and that is when you will find what you truly need.
Some days you will miss them, the way you miss your childhood pet or that friend you lost touch with. There are days you will want to blame your sadness on the loss of your relationship, when honestly you are just sad. These days, I still have dreams about us getting back together, but now I wake up relieved instead of broken. I still cry when I stumble on an old photo, but I cry because I am overwhelmed with nostalgia and gratitude instead of loss. And of course I still wonder what could have been, only now I also wonder what else could be.
When you reach that point, you will know. Your heart will feel lighter, and you will wake up one day and realize you got over it one small step at a time. You will realize that you made it, and hey, looking back it wasn't as bad as it seemed-- just like the love wasn't as good as it seemed. The past will become another memory and you will keep moving forward, the way we always have since we first opened our eyes and took our first breath on our own.
