How Am I Supposed To Move On When I’m Still Madly In Love With You?

 

I’ve been thinking a lot for these past 24 hours about what it means to be free of someone. It gets kind of difficult when his chains that bound you are now the only things holding your inner self together.

To be free would mean losing a piece of you that you never wanted to let go of. The hopeful, trusting piece. The childish, loving, caring piece.

If you can’t tell by now, I’m having an emotionally difficult time. Can you guess why? I made the hesitant but full decision to depend on someone emotionally and now, without any warning or satisfying explanation, I have been left high and dry. And alone.

I am told that it is not my fault. That what I do now is no longer his business. That it is up to me to live a lonely life I was led to believe was going to be filled with him. That it is up to me to fill a void that I’m not convinced should even exist. But… what am I supposed to do with that?

How am I supposed to move on?

How am I supposed to trust that “everything will be okay in the end” when there’s a world full of people who put the toilet paper on the roll wrong or eat cheese sticks in bites instead of peeling them?

The world is full of monsters that, in some capacity, ruin your life without even having the decency to scare you first.

Sometimes these monsters make you believe that you are one of them. Without admitting it to yourself, you start fulfilling that prophecy. That’s the first thing that’s scary about them — how quickly they make you spiral out of control. One day you’re acting like usual. And the next thing you know, you’re doing things you’re too ashamed to admit to anyone beyond your sister.

The next scariest thing is how silently they rob you. You won’t even realize it, but they’re stealing your trust in humanity. Slowly but surely you lose things like hope and love – things they took long ago without you even realizing it.

My monster doesn’t live under the bed or in my closet. He lives in the town over and he stole things from me. Things I will never get back, because Hope isn’t a pearl on a necklace that he recycled to his new girlfriend. I can’t find a replacement for Trust in loving someone at the closest Walmart (they never have what you need anyway).

The third scariest thing about these monsters is how quickly you’re ready to forgive them.

Because after all, he did steal your heart.

And so, my friends, it comes to my attention that we are taught that it is painful and wrong to fully give yourself to someone emotionally.

We all have our reasons for running away. Well, this isn’t in black and white, but I’m seeing two teams that one can play on: the Fumblers or the Fallers.

Either way, we’re playing a messy game that everyone’s involved in but no one wants to watch. The Fumblers are the ones who drop the ball and then run away. They are ashamed.

The Fallers are the ones who hit the ground so hard they can’t get up to tell the Fumbler to turn around, try again, don’t give up. And here we are, still playing over and over and over again convinced that maybe it’ll be different this time.

In two weeks, I’m supposed to go hike the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine. Now I am awake all night, shaking for hours until I’m sore, and unable to consume or keep down food. Not exactly the best shape to be in when you’re in the woods full time for 5 months.

Except why should I let him, an immature sack of lies, rob me of this dream, too? I already lost my soulmate. I can’t lose my soul journey.

I want to make something abundantly clear: I am really fucking miserable right now.

Why are people so afraid to admit that when it matters? Because then your friends and family will tell you it’s not a good idea to do this, which you completely disagree with, and if you disagree with them too then what do you have left?

How many things do you have to give up or struggle through to achieve a goal you held so close to your heart? To uphold your morals? I’m not convinced my goals are worth the sacrifice, the pain, the explanation, the loss.

It becomes clear why so many people hold sentences in their mouths like, “I wanted to go to film school,” or “I was in a band once, we could have made it big.”

Why don’t you do it anymore? Because you’re worried that the benefits of the voyage will not outweigh the life you could have established had you stayed.

Terrifying, right?

I know a thing or two about running away. Your problems? They follow you. I can’t help but think this is Fate’s cruel comeback for all the skeletons I have in my closet. Justin Timberlake was not lying – what goes around comes around. I know that being on the trail will not magically make my life better.

You should know that leaving (someone) isn’t magical. Mr. Clean doesn’t have a strong enough magic eraser to rid the world of your bullshit stains.

Dumping your awesome girlfriend because you’re afraid of working on yourself alongside her won’t make you any better. Giving up a journey on the grounds of emotional instability will only plant regrets in your mind.

That’s the whole point I’m trying to make — you’ve got to work, baby! Fear and pain and loss make it really difficult to do so. You’ll want to give up. You’ll want to run away. You’ll want an excuse to go back to someone that made you comfortable, even though she ultimately made you miserable and angry.

But you have to recognize when it’s most important in your life to accomplish something. Anything, big or small.

And you shouldn’t let any monster hold you back.