The Next Day

It's the day after the breakup, and I'm sad.

The fact that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that ending the relationship was the right thing to do doesn't make it hurt any less. In some ways, I wish it would've ended with lots of cussing and fighting so that I could be mad instead of sad, but alas, that's not the case. In some ways I am actually pretty pissed, but in most ways I'm just hurt.

When major life events like this take place, I (bedgrudingly) try to figure out what I need to learn from the situation as to not repeat mistakes and to continually learn from the things that happen in my life. And so now I begin.

I think the most pertinent learning I can take away from all this is that I need to follow my heart 100% of the time, and as quickly as possible. I'm guilty of pushing not-so-good signs and issues back in order to maintain the status quo, and to try to be happy in the now. That's not such a good idea. I would think "Is this really that bad? Am I overreacting? Do I really deserve better?," to the point that I would make myself believe that, yes, it really wasn't that bad, I was overreacting, and that, sadly, I didn't deserve better. I know now that I've got to listen to that still small voice and address the areas of my discomfort immediately and confidently. I'm just glad I finally listend to the voice inside and made what I know is the right decision now rather than five years from now.

I learned that no matter how much you want to, you can't change someone. And they can't change just to please you. They have to want to change because they know that it's the right thing to do. Until the other person decides to change for the right reasons, any "change" that takes place is surface deep and artificial. Which leads me to my next kernel of knowledge.

Words mean nothing. Words are empty. That is, unless action is put to the words. Mere words won't save you, and they won't change anything. "I'm sorry" and "I love you" are two things I will no longer accept unless they are acted out as verbs. Love especially is not a noun, a general description of a feeling, or at least it shoudln't be. It's a verb. An "action word" as my 3rd grade English teacher would say. So, until you're ready to act upon the words you want to say, save your breath and don't waste anyone else's time with actionless descriptions of what you think you feel.

Sometimes it really is just the wrong time, the wrong place. People aren't always on the same page or in the same place in life, and this can cause conflict and dissention. You can't try to make someone play catch-up and keep pace with where you are in your life. It just doesn't work that way. I need to be with someone who inspires me to keep pushing forward in all areas of life, emotional, mental, professional, personal, and spiritual. It's like this scenario: if you're standing on a chair, it's very hard to pull someone who is standing on the ground up to where you're standing on the chair. It's a lot easier for the person standing on the ground to pull you down. This doesn't make the other person inherently bad, it just means that they're in a different place.

I'm very good at moving too fast and making my significant other my top priority. I cannot, I repeat, cannot, do this anymore. I'm such a freakin' sucker for love, for fairy tales. I've got to maintain my own identify, my own self, apart from my significant other. Love, by my definition, is all about putting the other person's needs, wants, and desires above your own. To me it's about total selflessness. I think I tend to take this too far and I end up settling for 3rd or 4th place on the other person's priority list, while they are inequivacly number one on mine. I think I need to walk the beautiful balance and make myself happy, too.

Wow, this is a really long post. I could probably go on (and I might continue to add additional learnings as they come to me), but it's time to think about something else for now. Right now I'm just trying to make it through "The Next Day," and the next, and the next, and the next...