Today was interesting because today I learned something important about what I need in a future relationship by leaning into the inevitable feelings you will have after a breakup with another relationship. It doesn’t matter the day, the time, the place. Your brain sometimes tells you: “today you will be sad” and you can either fight it or go with it. I have been leaning toward going with it as of late. Letting my body full heal from what I consider to have been a healthy yet ultimately dysfunctional relationship. We loved one another, but love was not enough as there were too many little things that added up to make the bigger whole not feel like an oasis away from the world, but a lot of work, all the time, versus the normal maintenance and hurdles.
That being said, by leaning into this December 12th’s memory and allowing myself to have the memories that are the first without her since we separated, I was able to learn something very important to what I need for future relationships. By the way, I think of a healing process the same as I would an addiction, when it ends or you quit, you are going to have that one weird period of time where your life makes a full rotation around the sun but this time without the vice or in this case relationship, so of course your brain will, at times, feel it more than others.
I am finding this very cathartic. I used to push it aside and ignore it. I wouldn’t talk about it with those around me in fear of the societal “you aren’t over your ex” stigmas. I wouldn’t talk about it with family as they would just take it as I needed to be consoled or pitied. But in all, all I wanted to do was feel it. I wanted to allow my brain to do what it naturally does. Only, through society and the weird way we repress and stigmatize the idea that there is NO WAY you can be OK and ALSO heal through reflection, has this process become so muddied.
Why should we not talk to those we meet along the way about our past, including past relationships as long as we are sensitive to how we present it. Such as what I learned yesterday.
I learned something that is usually just out of reach when you breakup with someone as our brains tend to want to protect us from “pain” and repress anything that isn’t good. So remembering what it was that made the relationship not work, is often very difficult, which may be why we ignore the signs that we need to heal and end up with scars instead of healed wounds.
But I had a moment of clarity by pushing into the feelings of sadness(not to be with her, but that it just didn’t work and now I was alone during the Holiday season once again). I saw an old video where I was talking to her, and in that moment of no significance, I was attempting to get her to look at the lights we put up so we could share the moment together. But what I realized was she was incapable (not as a fault, but a character trait) to allow those little moments to be significant enough for her to either verbalize them to me or take them in as anything more than a blip in time. Whereas these smaller moments are the lifeblood of the everyday to me.
So through this small moment, this insignificant nothing, but through the allowance of opening my mind to letting in the past and accepting it as over but still part of my journey through life, I am now more prepared for a relationship in the future on something that is very important to me.
Still as I write this I realize what I am writing is not super clear as I am not sure how to verbalize a feeling such as this, that over time, builds up, and over time, becomes a thorn.
But it was at least a very important step in self realization and knowing more of the person I want to spend my life with and what differences and similarities we will need.
So this spew of consciousness is a two-fer, the want to normalize speaking about our ex’s and relationships past if they are helpful to our future and give context to who we are today. Just as we would do with a past job, family experience, trauma, etc. Without the societal stigma of “you are hung up on your ex”. And I get that there are many people not able to separate the two. And there are many people who are not over their ex. But I would hope I am able to verbalize like this bit of spew, what it is I am trying to share, and pad the “my ex” enough so it is taken more as “my experience” and “part of who I am, and what I need, and what I have learned about myself” from “my experience”.
Obviously if later in a relationship I would hope the context of everything we have been through so far, would make the above not necessary. But being empathetic to the needs of others and making sure to give that extra bit of affirmation is important.
The second part being, this was a truly awesome moment, where I was actually able to look back for the first time in awhile and see what it was that truly made a rift in a relationship and not have to blame anyone, myself nor them, but then take that tidbit of information and go: Ok in the future, it is very important for Tristan to find a human being who will verbalize or action to my little observations with me. Someone who will turn to the lights I say “WHOA” to and just acknowledge that moment. Even if insignificant in the “grand scheme” of five year plans and “long term future plans”. In that moment, we are creating a bond, we are creating a dialogue, even if silence is part of it. It doesn’t always have to be out loud, but to be able to expand on, or continue these small moments to turn them into a fun moment or an introspective moment, or just a moment is important to me.
“Whoa those lights are blinking like crazy!”
“Oh yeah, they are! That reminds me of fireflies”
“I used to catch fireflies as a kid.”“Omg me too, and they all died…”
“Hehehehe”
“I know I felt so bad about it, but it was also fun!”
“Ewww lol”
And that insignificant moment that was created just by being able to verbalize the present (not just being present), helps me to feel like I am on the island with someone else, not just inhabiting it, only waiting for the raft to be finished to get to the next destination.
