As cliché as it sounds, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Thank you, Kelly Clarkson, for reminding us of this in one of the best ‘get over it’ ballads of all time. But really, break ups are hard. And they hurt. When someone takes the most beautiful part of you, nurtures it, flatters it, showers it with affection and memories, and then all of a sudden that person is gone, it hurts. It’s like a UTI to the heart. A little nausea and a lot of burn, making you not want to move off the couch for days on end.
But when the infection has run it’s course, the antibiotics have done their job and it’s time to change out of those threadbare sweatpants, put on the big girl panties. The good ones that are saved for only the most important occasions. Because while it is important to mourn the loss of a relationship, it’s also time to celebrate all that this person taught you.
Relationships are a time to grow and learn and embrace a new personality, to build off of another person. It is a time where two people learn to rely on each other. What breakups do is re-teach us how to be self-sufficient. They remind us that we are easily broken, but just the same, we are fixable.
Sometimes it will take time, other times will take no time at all. But when a heart shatters into a million pieces, for whatever reason, it also has a million ways to be forged back together. Into a newer, updated model.
So mourn the lost love. But see it as a new opportunity to reinvent your heart. To take what you discovered about yourself with that old love and use it to improve yourself with the next one.
There will always be a next one. It’s okay to look for it, but don’t expect them to be waiting around the corner with a dozen roses. Love falls into place when we least expect it. With the least likely people it seems.
Getting our heart torn apart opens us up to feelings we otherwise would never feel. And therefor, we become more grateful for the love that was shared in the past and value the love to be shared in the future more.
Just remember, no feeling is final. Falling in and out of love is normal. And there is no wrong way to say “I love you.”
Happy Hunting.