Breaking Up and Loving Again

First, I learned to breathe without you.

Then I learned to live without you.

Finally, I learned to love without you.

We’ve all been there, that tragic, Earth stopping moment that the ‘love of your life’ tells you it’s over. Your throat swells and it seems like hours and hours before you can breathe again. But in reality, it’s seconds.

Yes, really. Seconds. Within seconds of hearing that information, you’ve already learned (albeit you don’t really process it then) that you can breathe without that individual in your life.

You eventually accept, though perhaps don’t like, that the relationship is over. And you spend hours and hours during the nights crying alone in the dark. You try to carry on with the day to day but everything seems to have her name on it or a reminder of her. You see someone who looks like her and have to stop yourself staring. You hear a song you both loved. You see a book you know she would love. You experience a moment and wish she were there to share it. You’re not really living without her. She’s just absent while you continue to live with her in your mind and your heart.

But as the days continue, she interrupts your thoughts less and less. And one day, you climb in bed and realise that you didn’t think of her once during the daylight hours.

Eventually, she stops visiting your thoughts in the night too. You don’t do anything specifically to stop it. It just happens. Time takes care of things. You stop wondering what you could have done differently.

This is the point at which you’ve started to claim your heart back. You’re not quite ready to give it to someone else though, not until you have every last piece of it.

But you get there eventually. You do. You realise you have it all back, every last piece. And maybe it’s a little bit broken or cracked in places. But that doesn’t matter. As long as you have it all, that’s what counts.

Finally, you meet someone else. They accept that your heart is cracked in places and you must accept that of their heart too. But as long as you both have all of the pieces, you can help one another put the bits back together.

And for the luckiest amongst us, we realise that what we thought was the love of our life was not. It was a love, yes. But it was never meant to last forever. It was a gift while it lasted and you learned from it, but it was never supposed to last forever. We realise this because we find something that puts everything else into perspective. We find a soul mate.

I found a soul mate in someone who had been just a friend for years. And we have built a beautiful home and are blessed with an amazing little family.

And the world is wonderful once again J