How To Be Okay With Starting Over Again

When you’ve devoted your life to someone for so long but in the end, you realize, they never gave you that back, it sets everything to square one again. All your friends are in serious relationships and now you’re not. When this happened to me, I felt so hopeless. All my friends would soon be getting engaged and moving in with each other, and I sat in a flat by myself, drinking away my sorrows with a bottle of wine.

To start with, I was jealous of everyone. Why do they get a fairy tale ending and I have to start mine all over again? Of course, I’d try to be happy for their milestones, but deep down I wasn’t okay with any of it.

I went back into the dating scene with a broken heart and didn’t know what on earth I was doing. I had no clue how to date anyone after having been in a relationship for so long. I tried to make a fairy tale happen with so many different guys. They came and went so often, and I’d always find a flaw. They’d seem so perfect to start with. I’d think, This is it, I can be like everyone else again, only for it to fall apart as quick as it had begun.

After doing this for so long, I finally took a step back and saw what I was doing. Trying to create a perfect relationship with people I’d only just met, I was turning into that crazy girl. The one who says I love you way too soon or messages their crush over and over until they finally respond, but it’s just out of pity.

It wasn’t until I met someone real, who I did really like, and actually took things slow that I realized I didn’t need to be jealous of my friends. If I had tried to keep my old relationship going like theirs, I would have been so sad because it wasn’t right for me.

I was excited to fall for someone again, properly this time. I was excited to get through all the relationship milestones with them. And I was excited to be with this person and experience all my friends milestones too, even if they were way ahead of me. I was finally happy, and it didn’t matter that I had to start all over again. If I hadn’t, I would never of found the love that I have now with someone who gets me completely.

I feel like I’m on the same level as all my friends, even though we are all at different places with our relationships. It doesn’t matter if you have to start again, because you can’t live a lie. You have to be happy, and it’s so worth it.