Hey collegiettes! Some of you are lucky enough to spend Valentine’s Day with a significant other. Others are lucky enough to spend Valentine’s Day as a single lady and make the best of it with your friends or family. However, there are some of us out there that have been recently (or not so recently) heartbroken, and all we want to do is eat multiple pints of Ben & Jerry’s while watching Friends… and occasionally shovel in more than a few cookies every ten minutes. Maybe all you want to do is take a shower and holler all sorts of heartbreak songs into your microphone-fist for about 45 minutes. That’s pretty reasonable.
Instead of doing that, though, you should do something constructive to pull yourself up from the crater of depression and hopelessness. Talk to your friends, your family members, a counselor, and/or anyone else you can trust. Talking about your heartbreak will help you to a certain extent — it allows you to identify your feelings and your reservations about moving on, and it adds perspective to your narrow, blinded view of the situation you’re going through.
However, you’re the only one who can get yourself out of this. It’s scary; I know. You feel so inexplicably cold that when you walk outside into the windy, freezing weather, you think to yourself that it’s a nice day out. But you have to believe me — You can’t look back. You can’t run back to something that hurt you, even if it’s familiar. Familiar means comfortable, but comfortable does not always mean good for you. You have to do the hard thing and do anything and everything in your power to never go back to the person who shattered your heart.
The worst thing is the amount of time it takes. In our society, we value instant gratification. If it doesn’t take much time for you to heal, kudos to you (please tell me your secret!), but it will most likely take a grudgingly long time.
Anyway, one of the things that gives me the strength to survive a painful break up is reading quotes about heartbreak. These quotes are universal truths; they make me realize that I’m not completely alone. A mix of inspirational, harsh, and sad quotes usually help me move forward. I’m going to present to you a few that have helped me through.
1) “Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.” —Mark Twain
I really like this one because it’s jarring enough to make you snap out of your love-induced haze. It reveals what your worst fear regarding your ex may be — that you’re just an option to them, not their priority. This quote is so powerful because it’s remarkably concise while showing you that YOU are allowing yourself to be someone’s option, and you can stop being that option when you leave them and become your own priority.
2) “He may still love you. He probably does. He probably doesn’t know what he wants/he probably still thinks about you all the time. But that isn’t what matters. What matters is what he’s doing about it, and what he’s doing about it is nothing. And if he’s doing nothing, you most certainly shouldn’t do anything. You need someone who goes out of their way to make it obvious that they want you in their life.” —Eliza Engellenner
Yeah, they’re probably thinking about you, and, yeah, they’re probably still in love with you, too. That doesn’t concern you anymore. Especially if they’re doing jack squat to get you back. Actions speak louder than words. They can text and call you all they want, but if they don’t march right over to your dorm and give you any good reason to go back to them, you sure as hell shouldn’t do anything about it. I hate to be harsh, but at this point, they don’t love you or care about you, so you might as well accept the unfortunate circumstance that you’re in love with the wrong person and focus on your own life.
3) “Don’t ever think a man loves you because he keeps coming back. That man loves the power he has over you. He knows you’ll take him back.” —Tumblr
This one is extremely important to keep in mind. Many of us believe that if our exes text us long messages, pleading us to go back to them and saying that they miss us and can’t live without us, it means they truly love us. Many of us are tempted to respond to these messages, saying we are so glad that they miss us and that we want to be with them, etc. But you know what that will do? That’ll provide them with the knowledge that they have power over us and convey that they can play with us and contort our hearts into whatever shapes they want. So don’t assume just because they keep coming back that they really love you or care about you. If they did, they would either leave you the hell alone because they know you deserve better, or they’d come right to your dorm and apologize for everything with meaningful gifts. Either way, take their return with skepticism.
4) “Sometimes it’s not the person you miss, but the feelings you had when you were with them.” —Unknown
For many of us who have been treated like garbage, we don’t actually miss our exes. We miss the high that we got from being attracted to someone who was attracted to us. We miss the high that we got from getting to know someone for the first time, from sharing our stories, spilling our secrets, showing our quirks. Of course you miss your ex as a person…but, then again, do you, really? Do you really miss someone who put you down so much you started feeling like you were to blame for everything that fell apart? No, you don’t. If you try to feel that high again by going back, you’re going to feel even worse because you gave them the “okay” signal to keep treating you like shit.
5) “Sometimes, we don’t want to accept that the love we are fighting for is hurting us more than if we were to have no love at all.”–Unknown
When we get into a habit, we don’t particularly like getting out of it. Even if it’s a bad habit. Even if that bad habit is a certain partner who won’t stop putting you down or comparing you to other girls or cheating on you. Why do we fight for the love of these people? Because at one point, you started feeling comfortable with them and suddenly the thought of losing their so called “love” hurled you out of control. You AND your partner know that you’re much better off alone, but it IS scary at first. Feeling lonely is a common, but terrible, fear. But guess what’s worse? Feeling lonely while you’re in a “relationship,” which will also push other people away from meeting you.
6) “Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.” –Deborah Reber
Finally, the most inspiring one. You don’t have to do a 180 and completely stop caring about someone to let go of them. (Like I said before, if you can, I’d really like some tips.) You’ll always care about them or remember them. But at some point, you begin to realize that you can’t control the way they treat you, let alone the way they feel about you. When you come to terms with the fact that you’re the only person you can control (and you’re the only person worth controlling), you’ll have an easier time adjusting to a life without them, which is a life you actually really want to lead.
I hope this helped! Go have fun on Valentine’s Day with your friends! And if you aren’t involved with anybody at the moment, rejoice at not having to shave your legs.