When You Feel Like You Haven’t Moved On

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On rainy days, your emotions run wild and it feels like the perfect time to reminisce. Nicholas Sparks has shown us that something magical can happen when you do. You feel the rain against your cheek, falling onto your hands, touching your lips; you close your eyes and everything starts flooding back. You feel yourself being drawn back to a memory – the flames awaken and the magic begins.

You don’t want to move on and let go of the past. Why? Because holding onto the past of what you had and what you knew is easier than moving forward and changing the present. As Sigmund Freud blatantly pointed out, humans have the tendency to regress back to their infantile senses to indulge their complexes.

You think of him everyday and more so on the weekends when you’re alone. Even when you want to move on, the past pulls you back. You feel like you’re a new person and you’ve survived days, months, even years without him in your life. But the memories of him pull you back. So what do you do? You give in and drown yourself in everything that you had with him.

You close your eyes and remember his smile that complemented his blue eyes. You remember the warmth of his body pressed up against yours. You remember his soft kisses that always pulled you back in for more. You remember drawing patterns and letters on his back with the touch of your fingertips. You remember waking up beside him and feeling totally complete.

You dig up your box of memories and relive the memories that you’ve had with him. You read each letter carefully, getting hung up on every word. You can hear his voice again, speaking to you lovingly. You remember the way he said his “I love you” and the way it made you smile every single time. Tears fill your eyes because even though it feels like he’s there… he’s not. Not anymore.

But while you were reliving the magical moments, you forget to relive the bad moments. You forget that he made you cry countless times on the account of his inability to love you the way you wanted him to. You forget that his words cut like knives that run you to the ground. You forget that he can always be right and make you feel like a naïve child. You forget the constant fears ringing in your head that it will all end at some point because he’s too good to be true.

When you do remember the bad times, your tears dry up. Why? Because reminiscing and memorizing him requires you to look at both sides of the coin. And when you do, you’re able to hold on and let go at the same time.

Remember that you’ve moved on. You’re remembering the past because it’s easier to have already known someone than to start all over again.

Remember that you’ve let go. You’re remembering the past because the memories were imperfectly beautiful.

Even if it’s just for a little while, the rain puts out the flames in your heart.