A few days ago I wrote my fifth letter for my ex. We’ve been broken up for 5 months now. As I was writing I noticed my tone was becoming slightly angry. It started off by irritation about how I’m still so trapped in not being able to forget him, but at a certain point I stopped writing and started looking at the other letters I’ve written and all the other stuff I’ve poured onto paper while we were still together. And then it hit me: everything in that folder is written by me. Every time I was frustrated by something in our relationship I wrote it down, trying to see where the problem was and how I could solve it. But that, in essence, is totally wrong. I can’t expect to solve any relationship problems on my own! That makes zero sense. I think I realised that at some point, and yet I still kept going, hoping one day we’d be a team. That’s when I really started getting angry, but this time at myself. I looked at the dates above my writings and saw that since the beginning, I had been dealing with the same problems as towards the end of our relationship. Why did I let it go on for so long? After we’d been broken up for the first time and he came back to me, I really doubted if I should get back together with him or not. One main issue was resolved: him not being over his ex, but what about all the other stuff I’d noticed didn’t fit? Of course I, an emotionally driven person, decided to get back together with him. Now I’m not sure if I should have done that. Sure we made baby steps over the next one and a half year, but we never really got to where I wanted us to be. I was always wondering if the flower still needed time to grow, or if it was already in full bloom. I was hoping we’d grow towards each other. And we did, feelings-wise. Unfortunately not in basically everything else.
My brain is wired the wrong way. It believes that if something is intense, it is good. That’s dangerous. The feelings I felt for him were intense, but that went both ways. I’ve felt ecstatically happy and miserably sorrowful in the same week. Hell, even on the some day at some point. And I was addicted to it. I think I still am, because despite now being fully aware we’re not right for each other, I still want to experience the feelings he gave me. That kind of intensity is hard to let go of. It’s hard to not let it rule your thoughts, because it makes you believe things that aren’t true.
I’m afraid I made the same mistake with my first boyfriend. I let go of the standards I had set for myself for what I wanted in a relationship, because I’d decided this was the person I should be with. And why did I decide that? Because of the feelings. Not because I observed their behaviour and decided that they matched my expectations, but because I thought that when the feelings are there, the rest will just magically fall into place. Here’s my problem: I’m always thinking about how things could be, instead of what I see before me. It’s all fun and games when you’re living in a fantasy world, until you have to be present in the real world and you see the consequences of always searching for how things can be, and not how they are. You’re never able to enjoy moments in real time, because you’re always searching for the next best thing. Or, alternatively, you’re always immersed in memories of when things were good, because that’s how you get your fix if things in present time aren’t so rosy. Even now I still catch myself thinking things about my ex like: ‘Well, some times he has been the person I’d want to be with. Maybe if he figures out what he wants with his life and fixes himself we can be the couple I’d dreamed we could be from the start.’ That is so dangerous. And stupid. Why can’t I just focus on the facts before me and base my decisions off of those?! Ugh. I’ve been rambling, haven’t I? Anyways, I would like to try to focus more on people’s visible actions and base my reactions on those, instead of philosophising where their behaviour might come from or dreaming about how they might change with the right guidance and enough time. It’s okay to want to grow with someone, it’s not okay to want to change someone from the beginning. Then they are not the right person.
Something else I noticed is I’m starting to remember my first ex a lot more clearly lately. I’d kind of pushed those memories away, but in the last couple of weeks I noticed I’m letting them back in. That’s been nice. They’re a part of me and I like remembering them. I even found a song I had totally forgotten about, even though it was Our SongTM. When I listened to it again I smiled and cringed a couple of times, because it has lyrics like: ‘I’ll never put no one above you.’ Kind of problematic, as that is what I was doing with him. Prioritising him over best friends and family all because I thought I had met the one and he would solve all my problems. Pathetic. But, I have learned from that so there’s hope for me now.
“Self awareness is a beautiful thing.” – The Walking Dead (S6E6)
Tea Time With Amber 