#breakupblog

[elle-vaytor]

The Break Up Blog Entry - Day Seventy Eight

So, today’s blog is going to go a little differently...

I had an online session with my therapist straight after work. 

A lot of things were revealed to me and I cried a lot as I came to certain realisations about X and our relationship. But at the end of it, my therapist urged me to write a letter expressing love to myself, that I’d like to put here for all of you to read with me. 

Here goes...

A Letter to a more Jaded, Present You.

Tuesday Evening

29th October 2019

Dear Lindsay,

Your eyes are puffy, your throat is scratchy and your nose is blocked. 

You've been crying over X again. 

Granted, you only cried over her because LY, your therapist, got you talking about your failed relationship and acknowledging certain truths you've been trying to avoid. 

The truth is, it's ok to feel sad. 

You loved X and you wanted to make cute half South African and half Filipino babies with her.

  But, Linz, you have to face facts now. X stopped loving you. Chances are, she never loved you to begin with. If she had loved you, she would never have told you she had cancer just to get money out of you. 

Lindsay, you deserve better than someone who's just an empty vessel: soulless and unfeeling. 

Underneath all your bluster and feigned cynicism, you have a good heart. You love people without inhibitions for better or for worse. You wear your heart on your sleeve because you want to believe that people are inherently good. Don't stop believing in people; sometimes, they'll prove you right. 

People have told you this countless times, but it's true. You don't look your age. You look younger than 34! That's because you don't take drugs, you've never done cosmetic surgery and you don't abuse the sauce...too much. Girl, you look good! Just adorable like a chipmunk. This is proof that you're aging well. But seriously, watch that booze intake though, if not just for the sake of your malfunctioning esophagus. 

You're a real woman in the sense that you don't feel the need to plaster your face with makeup or skincare products. You take full ownership of every wrinkle, pimple and a hairy upper lip. People don't just think you're beautiful when you dress yourself up. You're beautiful as you are, and that's enough. 

Some people might disagree, but you're funny. Sure, you still struggle to let other people laugh at you, but you're getting there slowly. You know how to be self-deprecating and not take life too seriously. You know how to brighten people's days with one of your well-timed (or ill-timed) jokes. Don't stop seeing the funny side of things - it'll keep you younger the more you smile and laugh.  

You're honest, Linz. Sometimes, you do lie and keep things to yourself. But you never lie about who you are, flaws and all. Keep showing your true self to others. There will always be people who will accept you as you are. And if they don't, then they're not worth knowing. 

You're not stingy with giving out compliments. Sometimes, I think you're some kind of vending machine with how you keep spitting out these compliments. You never tire of making people feel good about themselves. Keep lifting people up whenever you can - whether it's a kind word, a smile or just an acknowledgement. Letting people know that you see them and that you care should never be devalued. 

I'm sure you're feeling pretty chuffed with yourself right now. Good! Lindsay, you're a fucking catch! One day, you're going to make some man or woman get down on their knees and thank every celestial being that they finally found you. You're very romantic and creative, of course you'll find love again. 

So forget about X and her broke ass and live a little. Do things just for you and smile more. You're single and you have the whole world at your feet. 

Ok, I have to go now. But I'll be back again when you're dumb enough to stop believing in yourself and forget to love yourself.  You were born to love and to be loved. You are too special and amazing to ever believe otherwise. So keep using that heart of yours for good things and good people. 

God's not done with you yet, so keep showing up, ok? Even if no one else ever loves you (which is impossible, by the way), I still love and cherish you very much. You're gonna get over X and move on soon. 

You're gonna be just fine. 

All my love (and jokes),

Lindsay, 15 minutes later. 

xoxoxo 

Damn, that felt good. And now, I’m going to celebrate how awesome I am by doing whatever I fucking want tonight.  

[elmolou1990-blog]

Im (almost) over you.

I saw you today, I've seen you before of course but, today was different. So Here we are, your presence permeating my space. You looked both familiar and unfamiliar; I could feel the echoes of those long since felt butterflies in my stomach. Seeing you felt both physically and emotionally painful, and the expectation of what I thought would happen was so close I could hardly catch my breath. I thought things were different but I couldn't look at you, although I don’t have any more reason to catch your eye I wonder if you'd catch mine. I wonder what you thought of. I thought my heart was going to come out my chest. And then it all came crashing down. You hurt me. You lied to me. You caused me pain. I am angry at you. I can't bring myself to forgive you. I miss you. I yearn for you. I want you back. But I don't want you back. I want my old life with you back. You, you, you. The air gets thicker, my breath becomes short. It's like you're sucking the oxygen from my very lungs, you're nowhere near yet you're everywhere. You, you, you. I wonder how you are doing. I wonder if you are happy. I wonder what you think about me, and I can imagine you reading this, shaking your head. You always told me that I care too much what people think of me.I wonder if you’re proud, I know that you'll hate my blog, but what about my writing? Do you think I have potential? What do you think of the person I'm becoming. You, you, you. You told me you never wanted me to become bitter or cynical, you never wanted me to hate the world as you do. But I do now, there's no beauty left. I pass buildings, taken over with weeds and vines, I think of you. I walk the beaches there sand between my toes, I think of you. I walk past pubs the smells of beer hits me, I think of you. You, you, you. I’ve thought for weeks that these memories are unhealthy, signs that I am not ready to let you go. I’ve worried that if these thoughts haunt me forever, I will never be able to move on. But then I close my eyes and I can remember exactly how I felt that day. The hurt, the anger, the pain. Yes, I still miss you a lot, much more than I care to admit. After all, at some point in our lives I’ve loved you. But I know better now than to act on that yearning. You, of all people who had come and gone through my life, had been the hardest to lose – precisely because you weren’t mine in the first place. I had to watch you like a shooting star, dazzling me with your mystery and your charm – but all too soon you disappeared, and I was left with an empty sky. It seemed like I was destined to fall in love with you but never have you fall in love with me. Such a shame, the way fate has patterned our lives together; two lines approaching but never quite meeting.I’m still not over you, and that is okay. Losing you wasn’t a hangover that you can get over in a day’s time, or a bruise that leaves no trace after a week. I have to accept that there are days when I am over you, and there are days when it still hurts. With all this chaos in my heart, there is only room for acceptance, but I will make acceptance my road to letting go of you. Someday, it will not hurt anymore. This will all be just a scar, and what a beautiful scar it will be – it has taught me a lesson and left me with a reminder. Meeting you has taught me that I am capable of loving someone who can never love me back. Losing you has taught me to let go. Someday, I will stop looking for you altogether – I will stop seeing your face in the crowd, hearing your voice in the humdrum of every day. I will stop wondering about you, thinking about you. Someday I will finally stop falling in love with you. I’m still not over you, but I will be someday.

[break-upchronicles]

FORGIVE

I'm not writing this to tell yourself to forgive every person who has hurt you. I'm writing this to forgive yourself for the decisions you've made. At a certain point in your life, you truly believed that decision was right. Maybe you knew it was wrong but you wanted to take the risk. and that's more than okay. We all stay longer in relationships in hopes they'll get better. We love harder and longer in hopes of reciprocation. We love others more than ourselves because at one point we believed everything we have given to someone would somehow be given back and more. Wrong. After my most recent relationship has failed. I have hit rock bottom. I have come to conclusions that self love is the only answer to survive this life. Without self love, everything in your life can easily be manipulated with clouded judgement. Know yourself and love yourself enough to walk away from people and environments that do NOT serve your growth and purpose.

[elmolou1990-blog]

Handling Social Media Post Breakup.

Social media after a breakup can be a minefield. When do you change your relationship status? You just know the minute it reads 'single' you’ll have a million comments and inboxes saying “What happened!?” Or "Are you okay?" And my personal favourite “I’m here for you if you need me!” Should you unfriend your ex? I mean do you really want them to be able to see your every online move? You know the first profile picture change post breakup will be full of flattering comments, probably from guys you've can't even remember knowing which will ultimately piss off your ex... Is it worth it? Oh balls to it, and let’s just be honest, you don't want to unfriend your ex because then you can’t cyberstalk their activities anymore either... We've all done it. Can I really post that!? If you're asking yourself this it's probably best you don't post it. However, a breakup will totally mess with your rationale and morals so you'll probably post it anyway... These, and many other reasons, are why I suggest that Facebook (and all other social media outlets) create special post breakup button, wether we are the heartbreaker or the heartbroken either party can hit that feature and have access to all these settings within seconds: Facebook automatically change your relationship status to single, and then automatically deletes and hides all traces of the offending wall post so no one sees it. Hide your ex so you don’t have to see him in your feed every five minutes; because ultimately you will sit and agonise over the fact that he’s posting new pictures, deleting pictures of you, updating his info, basically getting his Facebook account back into dating shape, you'll spend hours trawling through his friends list trying to spot a new female face, then you'll trawl her accounts, hours and hours of wasted time punishing yourself. I'm not ashamed to admit I've done that. Bans you from searching for your ex more than say once a week with a 3 minute on page time limit, again tying into the above. You will waste hours and hours stalking and punishing yourself Keep you from impulsively reaching out to 'those guys', you know the ones who date women into bed, who send message after message to 'make you feel better'. There is a reason you have never dated these men before now. The breakup settings will just know it’s a bad idea and not allow you to message them or accept messages from them (because they will contact you do as soon as that 'single' post reaches their screen). Hide all those bitches online that are now engaged, married and over the top happy (and yes at times that will include your best friends and family) – you don’t need to see that kind of happiness right now. The breakup settings (I need a catchy name for this) will bring forward all the people who are going through messy breakups and divorces, all the people who feel just as miserable as you and that way you know you are not alone (and you are maybe even better off than some of them - harsh I know but sometimes it's necessary. And if that fails switch on Jeremy Kyle!). Intuitively know (yes I want Facebook to be psychic) when you’ve had too much to drink and keep you from messaging your ex, visiting their page or looking through old pictures of you together, when you were oh-so-happy. Emotionally torturing yourself is not a good idea. Intuitively know, (yes I'm asking a lot) when you’ve had too much to drink or are just in a very dramatic 'woe is me' mood and keep you from posting awkward enigmatic status updates, like “I'm so sad today,” or “I miss someone today.” No one wants to read that. Or even worse (and this is what I stupidly did), it will stop you saying terrible things about your ex and airing your relationship’s dirty laundry. People definitely want to read that (it’s interesting stuff, which will be talked about and will be shown to your ex!). You WILL regret it later, trust me on that, I still cringe and tear up at the thought of what I wrote online. Automatically give you a new password. Because it’s highly likely you knew each other’s passwords and can hack into each other’s accounts whenever you wish... I'm pretty pleased to announce I have never done this (nor did we share passwords) but I know people who have and someone who had a conversation with his ex over Facebook while she was attempting to hack him... Prevent you from posting pictures with the wrong intentions – ie: you with another guy because you want your ex to see you’ve totally moved on, get jealous, and want you back (this is not going to happen) or shots of you looking hotter than ever so he’ll know what he’s lost - Although I have to say posting hot pictures I think is totally a okay! I have been told though (yes I really have, and they've now been deleted) that posting selfies is 'a little desperate and pathetic'. That was a lovely message to wake up to the day after my first positive day in months. When the time is right, Facebook will eventually unfriend your ex. We all know that “let’s remain friends” hardly ever works, in real life or online so it would be 100x easier for the powers that be to take all of that pressure off you both! So there we have it and as soon as I'm able to fully leave the house without a panic attack or the help of another person I'll be straight over to Facebook Headquarters and speaking to them about such a function... I'll be interested to hear if any of you lovely lot have any ideas for what to call this feature!? Answers on a postcard!

[ijumpedacrossforyou]

And there it is.

Predictably, he finally texted 10 days after saying he would leave me alone. A text of reasonable length. “I know I said I wouldn’t bother you but...” he did anyway. “You’ve done nothing to deserve this.” “I’m truly sorry for being dishonest.” “I’m not looking for a response.” “I hope everything great happens for you going forward.” This generic package tied with a "hope all is well” bow. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist.

I told him again that he wasn’t sorry. He may actually be sorry I’m hurt, I just don’t believe he’s sorry he hurt me. He has never seemed or cared to understand why these deceptions bother me so much - the way it makes him look to me, the way it makes all the time we’ve spent together a farce, the way it makes everyone right, the way it makes her right. I hate it, and I hate that it doesn’t bother him. It’s partially my fault for allowing him to continually ask for forgiveness instead of permission. I have always come around. Why wouldn’t he expect me to do the same this time?

I am just so tired. I have waited so long for things to change while everything only continued to get worse. I pointed that out one of the times I tried to end it. We went from spending every weekend out together to him hiding any traces of being with me. He rejected all invitations to spend time with me and my friends or do anything in public. He parked a few blocks away and walked over to my house, as if the people he thought were watching would notice his vehicle but somehow wouldn’t notice him. We fought the first time. I told him it was okay after that, because I wanted that badly to see him.

I told him I would not absolve him this time. He said he didn’t want that. He only wanted me to know he was sorry and felt like a piece of shit. I told him he had no reason to feel bad about it now if he didn’t feel bad about doing it in the first place. “You have no idea how I felt when doing it but okay. Just keep thinking you know how I feel.” He also said he “hopes I find what I’m looking for.” Whatever he thinks that means. Probably finding someone else to be with, not believing that I have absolutely no intentions of ever dating again. Partly because I love him, and partly because I’m terrified of wasting any more of my time on men who won’t love me back. I’d rather be alone than face this level of disappointment again.

The conversation ended with me saying I have to guess how he feels, because what he says and what he does do not correlate. I saw he began to respond but stopped himself. Maybe because we agreed not to argue. I am trying my hardest to convince myself it doesn’t matter. No more excuses. No more rationalizing. It is what it is. Let it be. Let him be, and hope he leaves me be.

[elle-vaytor]

Damn, ‘Good On Paper’ was such a fantastic movie! Dangerously hilarious and brutally honest about trusting your instincts when it comes to romance.

Where was this movie 6 years ago when X lied her way into my heart?

[elle-vaytor]

Dear X,

It’s been exactly a year since I left you behind. Some days, I still miss you. Most days, I still love the idea of you. But with each day that passes, I love you a little less. I hope I eventually get to a point where I don’t think of you at all. That’s when I’ll know that I’m truly over you. But for now...I’m moving on, one step at a time.

Fornever yours,

L <|3

[elle-vaytor]

Dear X,

I gave you my heart a lifetime ago. Now I’m taking back everything you broke, one piece at a time.

L.