I am single-minded in the pursuit of my own healing and happiness.

When I finally realized that I would be filing for a divorce and changing my entire life, I was determined not to become a clichéd divorcee: I would not become bitter or lonely or surround myself with cats; I would not become a workaholic to avoid my life.

Instead, I’d passionately, aggressively and persistently pursue my own growth. I would confront all of my negative patterns of behavior, and I would create the type of life for myself that I needed.

I’ve been successful in so many ways. I’ve seen a long-time dream manifest in my life. I’ve created a happy day-to-day routine with my children. I’ve managed to put myself back into the dating world with more positive experiences than negative ones for so long.

But today…

Today I am struggling with hate. I am struggling with defeat. All of my relentless pursuit of happiness and healing still doesn’t protect me from being bruised by the careless actions of others. It started with being stood up for a date. It wasn’t a first date either. It was by someone I trusted, someone I liked. There was never an explanation. Typically, one single setback would not send me spiralling into the void, but it happened like a domino effect.

Because what he couldn’t know is that the last person I dated, someone I was actually in love with, did the same damn thing. Like I didn’t matter at all. So the second domino fell as being stood up again in this way brought back all of the pain of the last time.

Then I tried to talk to the wrong person about my feelings. This person made me feel like even trying to date was stupid in light of the fact that I have children and am recently divorced. This person further went on to express disapproval that I used online dating. Or that I would ever feel lonely. Or that I wanted a connection with another human being. The third domino fell as I the person I reached out to for support just added to my struggle.

I decided that I just needed to move on. I shed the tears I thought I needed to, and then I went on Facebook and deleted the first guy and then the second. I put a block in place so that I wouldn’t have to continue to expose myself to the pain. And that’s when the last domino fell, the one that knocked down the rest. Because the one I had been in love with had updated his relationship status. It didn’t even come as a surprise since I had suspected he was making the stupid mistake of f*cking his female roommate (guys: just FYI, it’s not the best idea to sleep with the person to whom you pay rent, particularly when you are admittedly an emotional cripple). Even though I was fairly certain of it, would even have bet money on the fact of it, the confirmation coming so close on the heels of the newest rejection was brutal.

The dominos fell. One by one, they all fell down, taking me with them. I was hit with this wave of sadness and anger, and all of the peace-loving, beautiful, grateful thoughts I’ve had were diverted into ugly, hateful channels. When we find ourselves in a place where we’re struggling to maintain our own peace, we have to realize that the dominos don’t fall unless they’re pushed over. In the end, we’re in control of how much we let the events in our life control us. I could see that I had given up my power to people who didn’t even think that I was worth a simple conversation or explanation.

I was letting myself be swept away on a tide of negativity because I was dwelling on all of the bad things that had happened and how much they hurt.

There are probably a handful of people who will read this and think that getting dumped twice in the same way reflects more on me than on those who did that, but it seems indicative of an entire generation (of both men and women) who no longer communicate effectively or honestly with others. It’s so much easier to ghost someone than to say that we want to move on. It’s so much easier to delete a text than it is to send a reply. At the heart of so much of the hurt in a relationship’s ending is how little we seem able to show courtesy and kindness when we move on and let go.

Of course, that applies on both ends. For me, I had to figure out a way to gracefully let go when all I wanted to do was hold on.

When we finally realize just how much we’ve given up our power, it’s important to figure out how to take it back. I didn’t want to be a person who sat around filled with hate and bitterness. Actually, what I really wanted was to reclaim the beauty in those ended relationships. I wanted to be able to remember them both fondly for the good times that we spent together rather than wrapping myself up in the story of how they turned into complete douchebags at the end of it.

At the same time, we should never lie to ourselves.

How do we take back our power, recover the good times and still see the relationships as they actually were? As I sit here in the aftermath of all of the negative emotion, all I know is that it’s going to take effort. We can’t just expect to snap back to normal like we never had feelings at all. We can’t expect to automatically feel happy and peaceful without putting in some serious work. I know my work will involve being able to recall the good memories without crossing the line into anger or sadness or regret about how the relationships ended.

When a relationship ends badly, we may have to learn to isolate individual moments in our memories and not follow them to the conclusion of the relationship.

I feel like this type of work will also involve acceptance. We have to see these people as they are: flawed human beings who can make mistakes. Demonizing them may be entertaining with our friends, and it may seem cathartic, but in the end everyone makes mistakes. People typically aren’t all good or all bad, and it helps to put that in perspective. Still, we can acknowledge that the actions they took were unkind. Both of the men who were careless with my heart were emotionally unavailable. Regardless of the reasons they gave (workaholics, past relationships, etc), in these encounters I showed up with my vulnerable, open heart to be met with ones that were closed-off, guarded and sometimes duplicitous.

I can acknowledge that without the hate.

It is possible to be angry without wishing anything bad to happen to those who hurt us.

Taking back our power is hard work, but we deserve to be happy. We don’t deserve to endlessly beat ourselves up for all the things that didn’t work out the way we’d hoped or planned. In the end, we may have to change the direction of our own thoughts, guiding them back to more positive directions. When the heart wrenching emotions rise to the surface, we may have to practice extra self-care to be able to come back to a place of peace. So we take the time to get enough rest and to feed ourselves healthy food. We exercise even when all we want to do is pull the covers back over our heads. We find something to be grateful for. We spend time around people who love us. We try to laugh. We do whatever it takes to weather those emotions until we’re able to go back to the hard work of reclaiming our power.

Tonight, I’ve weathered the storm. I’ve called my closest friend and used profanity the likes of which would make a sailor blush. I’ve called down curses upon those who’ve hurt me. I’ve cried tears that felt like they would never stop. I’ve been hurt and angry and sad and bitter. And then I realized that I don’t want to sit here with these feelings forever.

I don’t want to be the person who wishes her exes to suffer. To give a f*ck that I’m hurting, yes. (A sincere apology would be nice, although not likely to happen.) For them to contract a venereal disease, be dumped in the same cruel way and end up homeless? Well, no. I don’t want to be the person that wishes for that. I want to be the one who remembers how tightly he held me and how he told me I was beautiful when I wasn’t sure I believed it. I want to remember exactly how wonderful it felt to fall, to wake up knowing that I’d found someone special, even though I suspected the time would be limited. I want to be the person who wishes him, who wishes them both, happy lives with a love that we all deserve to feel.

So I’ve weathered the storm, and I’ve made this small effort tonight to reclaim my power. I’ve stopped the spiraling thoughts that lead only to bitterness. But my heart still hurts and I’m so very tired of feeling this way. So for tonight I’ll practice the self-care that is so necessary to us when we’re hurting. Tonight, I’ll simply go to sleep.

I think I’ll be stronger tomorrow.

 

 

 

Author: Crystal Jackson

Editor: Renée Picard

Image: Francesca Dioni/Flickr