‘You almost came in first, but someone was a little bit faster’ or ‘you almost got a hundred, but you messed up on simple addition’ or even better yet, ‘you almost got the job, but there just happened to be someone who was slightly more qualified than you.’ And the list goes on.
The list of almosts.
It makes you doubt in yourself. It makes you wonder if you are even good enough. It brings us down and yet, there is the one almost that can be just as painful: ‘you almost had that relationship.’
Was I not good enough? Was there someone else all along? Was I just a placeholder until you found what you were actually looking for? What did I do to deserve this? This feeling of you almost had it, but then you lost it. These thoughts and questions float around consistently in your head. It drags you down like a deadweight and it makes you feel like you are running circles in your own head. Sometimes I get lost in these spirals but the more I do, the more I realize I am stronger than this.
Some people will tell you it’s not worth it, getting lost in your own head. And in some cases I agree with them. In other cases, I pause for a minute and try to analyze the situation. Maybe me getting deep in thought about myself and my relationship with others can actually help me. By thinking through–not over-thinking-–my interactions and conversations with others in my life, I can identify the strengths and weaknesses of those relationships. This can help me realize my current dilemmas and it can help me move on and heal.
Healing can take a long time to happen.
As my mother would say, “You always want things done yesterday” in reference to my nonexistent tolerance to being patient. Now if you ask some people, they will say there is nothing to heal from. If it was an “almost” relationship, you obviously didn’t get hurt since there was nothing there. But what they don’t realize is that it’s not the relationship part that hurts, it’s the almost part that does. You wonder too much about what you did wrong, what you could’ve done differently, and how you can fix upon it for next time. What you don’t realize is that a lot of this isn’t your fault or how lucky you are to NOT be in that relationship or how much the other person is missing out. Yes, I know this sounds absurd, especially when you are trying to mentally recover from the rejection, but hear me out.
You had no say in what the other person felt about you or how they were going to treat you. Even if you knew what they felt in the first place, you still had no control moving forward and anything you did wouldn’t have changed their mind in the end. If they didn’t see your value in the first place, they don’t deserve you and you deserve better. They weren’t going to treat you with the respect and dignity you deserve, so they don’t deserve to be in a relationship with you. They are missing out on one of the best things life has to offer: YOU.
I know this can be hard to accept. I’m still learning to accept this. It’s new territory for me, and for many of us, we just want to fall back into the old habits of self deterioration. DON’T. For me, I’ve been getting better slowly. With the help of my friends and *shout-out time* my roommate (same one from my last article) I slowly heal. You can, too. Before we can run the marathon, we need to learn how to crawl first, one step at a time.