I am getting back. It was a process, it still is, but now I want to document it.

Recently I got through a break up. For most, even for myself, the idea of rejection from a loved one is very painful. I stood for harder heartbreaks in the past, however this time I wanted to make it in the right way.

Heartbreak can be a door to endless suffering and depression, but it can also be a door to self discovery and enlightenment. I chose the latter and I knew my only ally was time.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t rallying for all my friends to trash you or telling them the story for the 15786th time, or regretting everything or blaming you. But what I was about to do was for me, to not get any resentment from this relationship, to not build walls anymore, but to build better roots. You were a lesson, I just needed to understand how.

During the first days and weeks, I was crying. This hard feeling of not holding it anymore, knowing I blew it up, knowing you blew it up, knowing my life has changed in your absence and me not being able to control it. Anxiety was there from early in the morning, missing sleeping with you, to getting to work and not talking with you, to finishing work and contemplate how empty my life was before you, and how I got back to it.

I chose to apply my previous medicine: meditation, travel and exercise. For the first one, I started to meditate every day in the morning. At the beginning was hard, I was scared of being alone with my head. I was thinking and replaying our trip so much, every line you said, how I reacted, what we did wrong, how it ended. Stories crowded my head and feelings were so sad and deep, desperation and anxiety of me feeling not worthy, me feeling abandoned, and above all, me being powerless to do something about it.

About travel, I got so enraged how you ruined my holidays. I couldn’t get away no more. I was just coming back from a trip.

And about going to the gym, I just couldn’t. I mean, I tried it, but I didn’t have any will. I wanted to drown myself in Oreos and pizza. And so I did.

Then I decided to let it happen. I started to understand and read about it. There was only one way out of this: go through it. I couldn’t push it away, I couldn’t get away from it; but then where was the healthy line? Should I keep thinking about it all the time? getting depressed with cry out bursts all day? was it healthy at all?

For the next week I started to allow things to be as they are. If I felt like crying waiting for the bus, I cried. If I got enraged in the middle of my work I would go to the toilet to close my fists real hard and cry in rage. I started to tolerate myself for not understanding my feelings, sometimes it was so chaotic and sometimes it felt ok. There were days I felt I was over it, and then I noticed how I miss you drinking coffee or spritz and again I would cry. It was ok.

Then I started to get in touch with these feelings, I mean, they were chaotic and mixed up but I needed to sit with them. I needed solitude to know what I was facing. So during my meditation and during the days, whenever I had a rush of feelings, I wouldn’t brush it off, I started to stay in it, not running away no matter what. I started to dig deeper even if it meant replaying the whole story again. I faced the demons, I sat there putting my guard down, getting all the low confidence in the world and put myself to work.

Then I discovered that I was mostly sad. Beneath all, I had this huge feeling of sadness of not having you around. I felt disappointed at myself for not being enough, for not keeping you interested. I felt angry at how you treated me, how you didn’t keep your word, how you let me down. Angry at myself on how I let it happen.

And at this exact point I dropped the story.

Once I reached this, I stopped thinking about what happened, more about how I felt. I dropped what you said, what I did, and if it popped up, I would just note it and say to myself “this won’t bring any good” and let it go. You see, it doesn’t matter if I got any explanations on why you stranded away, or any conclusions on why we ended like this…you were gone. No matter the story, this was over and as hard it was to do, I needed to learn from it and move on. LEARN FROM IT

Opening to the darkness by not attacking my problems, somehow made me feel free. I started to see my sensations, how my shame, grief and anger would express in my body, the way my face would contract before tears or my back curved when ashamed. So if I could see my feelings, I could contain my state of mind, I wasn’t all over the place anymore. I could dialogue with them and reach an agreement.

To all this I have to add I started dating again. I searched any match in Tinder, to go out, have a beer, maybe kiss. What happened in the middle was that every guy when gone, didn’t match you. I mean, I started to miss you in all your qualities, to appreciate all the good you had, from washing your hands to asking the right questions. You weren’t all a monster and a liar, you were also the good you.

I decided this was a phase that needed to end. It helped me to appreciate you, to make peace with you, but I didn’t want to push it so that I miss you so much I go back to you. I understood in myself that I don’t need to force things, that with you we clicked in a way and sex is such an easy thing to get nowadays that basically everything that comes so easy it is just not worth it. I passed.

Starting to understand the separation, no one was to blame. I had a hard mirror on myself and a lot of blame to your faults. But maybe it was just that. It wasn’t a big conspiracy against my happiness, it was just 2 people drifting away on their own needs of love and the tools to show it.

Yes, you have in my book a list of all the things I see bad in you. But what was hard to admit wasn’t that. It was that you fell out of love, you moved away to a complete different world where I was not there. Not that I wasn’t enough (even though thoughts like this still crawl back in), or that I was too much (I have those too), none was valid.

In that way, I started to forgive you, and what’s the best…to be truthfully kind to you. Maybe my projection of you failed me, maybe your projection of me failed you. I wish I could have loved you as you were, but trust me that your ways of being, weren’t embracing me in my needs or my authenticity. And not because of that I was wrong needing you, or you rejecting me. We were just different. I stood up for what I am, sadly you didn’t follow.

I now have faith in basic goodness. I feel complete and happy inside my grief, I care for you in my longing and I am erasing all my resentment. You are gone, and all the particles you left are here to build me. I took myself in with all my boredom, passion, remorse, sadness and anger. I realized I can’t strategize love but I can reach myself in my curiosity and willingness to feel. How could I be kind to you if I wasn’t kind to myself first?

I am not missing you, I’m missing the connection and the intimacy. But guess what? Connections are everywhere. And somehow, somewhere, love like that will find me again. I will be ready, I will not have traumas. You were a great teacher, and I deeply thank you for all I went through with you. I wish you the happiness you search for along the way, I hope you get to grow as a person as you envision and in your whole unique way of being, I wish you well.

It’s a good time to let go my dear one, it’s time to be free.