The "Myth" of Moving On

How I deal with moving on from difficult situations.

My dear roses, I want to talk to you about the concepts of letting go and moving on from people who no longer serve you. The first time I experienced the moving on process was when I was in the second grade. I was friends with these twin girls from school, and we did everything together. We ate lunch together, played at recess together, and went to class together. One day, this new girl came to our school and all three of us met her. After that encounter, my twin besties started to hang out with the new girl more and me less. I was suddenly left out of our daily lunch and recess meetup, which confused the hell out of me because I was like, we were just cool a week ago! Once I finally built the courage to confront them about it, one of the twins said, “We’re going to hang out with her now. We don’t like hanging out with you anymore.” At this point, I know you’re probably either saying an empathetic “aww” out loud and pitying 7-year-old me or secretly laughing at this embarrassing moment in my life. Of course, I cried it out, even sulked about it for a while, but I eventually moved on and found new friends. Key phrase, I moved on.

I'm not entirely sure when moving on and letting go of people became so hard for me, but the feat never fails to present itself. My biggest challenge in the moving on process is actually beginning the process to begin with. Whether I had to move on from losing a romantic relationship, losing a friend, or falling out with someone for absolutely no reason at all, I was always stuck on the why. Why did this happen? Why don’t they like me anymore? Why would something seemingly so good go to shit so fast? The harsh reality of these “why” questions is that sometimes you outgrow people. Sometimes the people you thought would stay in your life forever were only meant to last a season. And the majority of the time these people were placed in your life to teach you a lesson, one that requires you to move on in order to learn. It's going to be hard, but it's not impossible. And it's definitely not a myth.

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"The beautiful thing about growth is there isn't a time limit..."

The first time I experienced heart break, I swear I thought I would never get over it. If you asked any of my close friends about that time, they’d tell you how there were periods when they wouldn’t see me for the entire week. That’s how bad it was. When there’s a romantic history between you and a person, moving on from whatever caused the end of that relationship is like trying to put back all the pieces of the puzzle that is you. Except it’s an extremely time-consuming puzzle because you have to rediscover yourself without the person you talked to every day, invested time in, interacted with sexually, became comfortable with. They became your routine. Something has changed, something has shifted, and there’s nothing you can do to fix it. That’s what makes this so painful, is your lack of control over the situation. And if you’re anything like me, like I said before, my first question is always why. Sometimes, that why question going on a loop in your mind will never be answered. The only way to keep you from driving yourself crazy and further deteriorating your mental stability is to know that if someone is meant to be in your life, they will be in it one way or another. This is easier said than done of course, it’s hard to keep your brain from overanalyzing a relationship and trying to figure out where it went wrong. It took me nearly six months to move past the fact a person I had once loved had become a complete stranger to me. For others, it may take them two years. The beautiful thing about growth is there isn’t a time limit. You can take as much time required to reach a point where you are content with the fact that a person may not be able to be in your life anymore.

Time, self-reflection, self-care, self-love. Four important things I value when moving on from a difficult situation. Discover what each of those values mean to you whenever you're in the process of finding your healing. Find out what they look like for you, what forms they take on in the physical world. Self-reflection for me is journaling, but self-reflection for you may be something entirely different. Take the time out to recognize healthy coping mechanisms so that you don’t think being able to move on is such a myth like I once did.

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"Who's going to love you better than you love you?"

The same rules apply when it comes to a non-romantic relationship. Friendship breakups can often be more painful than relationship break ups. Friendships that seemed purely bliss in the beginning but turned toxic, friendships where one friend outgrows the other, friendships where someone was wronged. Regardless of the circumstances, you always have that heavy weight on your heart reminding you that you’ve lost a bond that cannot be regained. My mother once said, “People don’t determine your value, you do.” If you value yourself more than anybody else, letting go of those who don’t value you will become a lot easier. Sometimes the fear of being alone accompanies this notion, there have definitely been moments where I was confronted with the overbearing feeling of loneliness. And while I knew there were people out there who loved and cherished me, I still could not shake the feeling that I was alone because of the few people I had lost. Don't get me wrong, it's very natural for us to experience loneliness especially after losing someone we were close to. However, at the end of the day you must always know that you're never truly alone because you have yourself. Who's going to love you better than you love you?

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It’s in our nature to become attached to the people we love, but sometimes the people you want in your life may not be the people you need. If anything I said resonated with you, and there’s someone who comes to mind lingering in the back of your head as you read these words, it may be time for you to address those feelings. Remember that your feelings are valid. Remember that it's going to be hard, and you will probably feel worse before you feel better. But take it from somebody who has been through this process more times than I can count, letting go and moving on from those who do not have a positive impact on your life is worth that temporary pain. I hope you find the peace in mind that you are looking for. Much love.

- Z