Today I was reflecting on the past year of this little adventure known as “my life”. I was thinking back to this same day, a year ago.
Where was I then? Or rather, who was I then? Well…
By the beginning of June 2011, I was at the start of the end of the worst relationship of my life. You’d have thought I’d have been ecstatic? No. The opposite. As far opposite as you can be from ecstatic, was me. As far as I was concerned, this was the end, not of the two year long hell worthy prison with the tag “boyfriend”, but of life itself.
This guy was everything to me. Poor, pitiful me. He had broken my heart countless times; hell he’d even blown his nose on it and stamped it into the ground for good measure, and yet I couldn’t help but love him.
So there I was, heart broken yet again, unable to see any way out of my self-pitying, endless torment, acting like I was the only person on the face of the entire Earth to experience such pain.
Of course, I wasn’t. Countless people have been through this- the break up you never wanted to happen, watching the other person move on without so much as a glance backward. While all you’re doing in the way of “coping” is looking through old photos, thinking nostalgically of “well… there were SOME good times?”, torturing yourself over social networking activity and trying desperately not to text/call/email. And drinking. A lot.
The self pity stopped after a few weeks and I eventually got on with my life.
This is the point where we start reflecting: If you had told me then, that in just a year’s time, I’d have a year of University under my belt, a tonne of new friends, a new relationship (and the best relationship I could ever ask for, I might add) and a life that actually feels like I’m living it, rather than just watching it pass by? I’d have never believed you. And yet here I am. Typing this. Reflecting on how much I’ve grown since then; grown up out of teenage-hood and into adulthood, and grown overall as a person.
Turns out, I could survive it. And I could even bring myself to trust someone else again, and love them even more than I’d loved previously. I could survive being a student and I could survive moving to the other end of the country, where I knew no one, completely independently.
With this growth, I’m safe with the knowledge of one certainty; if I can survive those things, how hard can the rest be?
A year ago I thought my life had come to an end. Now I know that my life is just beginning. The future’s bright, if you only open your eyes wide enough to see through the tears of the present.
Thoughts, musings, and ramblings... 