Contractions

The good thing about breakups is that eventually the pain fades away. No matter how heart wrenching and painful the pain fades. One minute you're crying uncontrollably and the next you're filled with hope. Hopeful for what tomorrow has in store for you. The hard part is you can never time those moments. You can't tell if the time when you're in a work meeting is going to be the moment that you feel hope or the moment you're going to be overcome by desperation. Desperation so intense that anybody who makes eye contact with you can send you into hysterics.

When going through a break up, your feelings are not your own. They belong to the moment and the moment is as unpredictable as a teenager on prom night. And for everyone the breakup recovery time is different because it's not a science, it's an art form. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could log on to a website, complete a survey and get a compiled analysis based on our responses to how long we can expect to mourn over our failed relationship:

Were you married...add 70 days
Did he cheat...add 37 days
If you were together for more than a year...add 50 days
If you weren't the one to end the relationship...add 45 days
Did he turn out to be a complete pussy....subtract 22 days

Total Mourn Time: 180 Days

Someone once told me that it takes twice the time you were with someone to finally get over them. I'm not sure how much truth there is in that statement but I do think that recovery time is in direct correlation with how honest you are with your emotions. You can be stuck in anger, resentment or rage in order to help yourself get over a relationship...and for many anger may sustain their emotional safety for years. Or you can be honest with your emotions and embrace them as they come.

If you feel SAD...cry.
If you feel MAD...yell.
If you feel HOPELESS....eat...don't ever underestimate the healing powers of foods covered in salt, butter or sugar and all things dipped in ranch dressing.

Anger is a powerful thing, but it isn't real. Anger isn't the pure emotion it's the reaction that we get when we feel sad, scared and hopeless. I'm guilty of moving to anger. In past relationships anger was my dear close and trusted friend. When I went through a break up it would carry me with such ease that I would sail from one relationship to the next. Thinking to myself, "Well clearly I wasn't in love with that person, because if I was, how the heck could I be doing so well right now?"

But in the end it always caught up with me. I even got back together with some ex's because once my anger high crashed me into the ground of sadness all my true emotions bubbled back up. Instead of realizing that these were skeleton memories I thought they meant I still loved the guy...so I got back together with him only to find myself in the midst of repeat break up months later. It was like some really messed up torturous Groundhog Day.

Don't get me wrong, there have been a few relationships I regret walking away from and wonder what would have happened had I stayed. But the truth is, and forgive me for sounding like a stitched grandma pillow, everything happens for a reason. Should I have stayed I may have never learned all I have about relationships at this point in my life.

I was just in a relationship with someone I thought I knew. The truth is that I met him, fell in love with him and four months into the relationship things began to fall apart. He stopped being the sweet person I was in love with and began to become resentful and quick tempered. The scary thing is that people change over the years. Someone you knew for years and years may do something so out of left field that it leaves you feeling like you never knew them at all...but inherently if the love is there I have to trust that it will see you through.

If I am going to continue to be honest with myself I would have to say I knew there were red flags throughout the relationship but instead of running away, like I have a tendency to do, I stayed and tried to work on it. I spent months on a recon mission trying to find the man I fell in love with. But as the great and wise Oprah always says...trust your gut, and I publicly apologize to you now Ms. Winfrey, I did not take your infinite wisdom.

In all my past relationships I've always known when my gut was telling me to walk away. Somehow my gut knew better than I that my dating journey wasn't over yet. I still had places to go, guys to kiss and guys to regret...I still had bars to visit, places to dance and movies to go to.

Relationships have so much to do with timing. I've met people that I could picture myself settling down with only to find that he was still in the, "I would rather go to a club or bar than watch Netflix with you and BBQ on Friday night" phase. I am starting to think that relationships have much more to do with timing than with love. If the fate and timing gods smile upon your courtship...then maybe you get lucky and your paths stay crossed and time won't lead you astray.

I have digressed from my initial point. Breakups are hard...they are harder than hard...they are torture. They turn you upside down, they make you fear things you never found scary before like listening to the radio, going to certain restaurants, eating certain foods, traveling to certain locations, seeing certain pictures.

The world suddenly becomes saturated with couples...suddenly it seems like everyone is getting married or having babies or finding someone wonderful....everyone except you. But I find comfort when I try to realize that I am mourning the death of the relationship, the loss of something I thought life had in store for me. In my current situation (and many of the ones before) I am starting to realize that my pain isn't that much about losing them, it's about losing what I thought they meant to my life.

I am in day three and I have to say my breakup contractions are growing further and further apart. My empty house seemed less scary this morning and I can only hope that tomorrow it's even less so. Maybe next weekI will be able to look at his picture without getting a lump in my throat and hopefully next month I can go to a somewhere we use to go to together without feeling like I have rubber bands around my stomach.

And maybe...just maybe in a few months time I will be able to smile back at that one guy and begin a new chapter using all I have learned in this relationship to make the next journey better.