The Unedited Meaning Of Moving On

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I hate to say this, but moving on doesn’t always feel like you’ve suddenly been freed from the chains of sadness, despair, frustration, heartbreak, and betrayal.

For weeks, or months, or maybe years, you won’t be fully okay. Moving on doesn’t happen all at once. Moving on comes with surges of positive and negative emotions, like the persistent ebb and flow of a tide washing up the coast, and retreating, over and over again on a grey day. Moving on means you’re slowly accepting life without the person you once loved (or still love), the person who was your best friend, the person you shared so much of your vulnerabilities with. Moving on is slowly releasing the pieces of your past with that person from your grasp – laying it to rest, along with the rest of your past.

Moving on means you’ll have wonderful days again. Some days, you’ll be going about your own business when you realize that you haven’t thought about that person until that very moment. That’s a victory in itself. You’ll be going for a walk or enjoying the company of friends, and realize that you didn’t wish that person was next to you. You’ll realize that all the things you were once upset with, doesn’t matter anymore. You’ll learn how to live without them – whether it’s forced or it’s gradual – and you’ll stop waiting for the calls and the messages. You’ll meet new people, make new connections, rewrite the past with better memories, and be made anew.

Moving on means you’ll still have gloomy days in your mind and deep down in your heart. It’ll hit you like the fiercest storm in the most unexpected moments. Especially if you’re unable to avoid frequenting or going by the places you once used to go with them, it’s okay to have flashbacks to your past when you go there again. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you will still want them to be the first person to hear all your best and worst things going on in your life. In the mundaneness of the everyday, you’ll wish they were doing it alongside you. On holidays, you’ll wish that you could go back in time and remember when they were standing next to you, like they promised they always would. On birthdays, you’ll imagine them with you, toasting to another happy year of your life. You’ll remember the picture-perfect moments with nostalgia – like when you kissed them in the golden sunset light, with all the magic and sparkle of those good days.

But ultimately, moving on means you learn from what they taught you – both good and bad – and you go forward knowing you came out of it wiser.

You’ll realize that it ended because that chapter of your life with that person was meant to close, one way or another, sooner or later. Moving on doesn’t mean you’ll forget about their presence from that one point in your life. It means that eventually you’ll learn to live again without them, as you once did before they came into your life and took it by storm.

It means that one day, you won’t remember the sound of their voice telling you they love you, as it’ll sound so foreign. You won’t yearn anymore for the comfort of them pulling you into their arms – once the only thing in the world that you thought could make you feel better when you missed them. You won’t wish for the days when they were holding your hand, making you feel secure – because you’ll be just fine on your own.

And you’ll be okay again.