I told myself that talking about things from last year was behind me. I told myself that allowing my mind to turn back to things I’ve tried so desperately to erase is unhealthy and traumatizing me from moving forward with my life. On the other hand, if there’s one thing I’ve come to learn about myself is that I cannot personally move forward with things unless I confront them or at least discuss them to some degree. One thing I’ve come to face in this past year is that I needed to move on from a past relationship.
While the relationship had only lasted a few months, it imprinted itself upon my memory in more ways than one. Just hours after the relationship met it’s untimely end, I began to remember every detail that one could not possibly want to remember. The brain has a funny way of working sometimes, right?
So the relationship ended and I was supposed to move on with my life and start anew, right? While that sounds good, that’s just not how things worked for me. I wound up suffering from an ungodly amount of sorrow and regret that this last year is somewhat of a blur, but there’s one thing that I came to understand and it was that in order for me to move on, I needed to forgive two people.
The first person that I needed to forgive was my ex. I needed to forgive him not for anyone else, but for myself. I needed to find comfort in knowing that things were okay and in order to do that I needed to forgive them for how things ended. While my ex and I are not the best of friends, it’s not like we hate one another either. We are adults, so we are capable of being cordial and understanding that two people are better off as friends rather than being together. It’s funny looking back now. Knowing what I know and also that time really does heal a broken heart is beautiful. I spent so much time developing this internalized hate about my ex that I never realized that I hated someone for just being themselves. I hated someone because they could not love me the way I had hoped to be loved and that just was not fair nor was it right.
The second person I needed to forgive, was myself. It took some time, but I finally understood that this was the final step needed to heal. I needed to process what all had transpired and I came to the conclusion that I needed to let myself know amidst all of the self- depreciation that it was okay to feel the way I felt. While I am not condoning the way I treated myself, I am saying that it is a part of the healing process.
Forgiveness was necessary. Forgiveness was liberating. Forgiveness was everything I didn’t know I needed. Maybe forgiveness is what you need too? Sometimes it’s things we didn’t know we needed that turn out to be the most beneficial for us. Hopefully, you find out what exactly that is and learn to embrace it.