I learned a really important piece advice when I went home for Christmas a few months ago. I went to visit my friend from high school. She lives in one of those recovery houses with a few other young girls battling different kinds of addictions. She's doing really well so far and despite a few hiccups along the way, I know she's on her way back to the straight and narrow.
One of my friend's roommates was talking and said something that has stuck with me ever since then...
"When you're at your bottom, there comes a point in time where you just stop digging."
I literally got goosebumps when I heard her say that. I felt as if I was digging for something for pretty much a year. I was digging for truth, for assurance, for hope, for an answer why, for pretty much anything to help me wrap my mind around why certain things have happened last year. Were they coincidences? Was I being messed with? Who is this? Where are you? Why are you doing this to me? Will we be okay? When can I see you? What are you afraid of?
You gave me answers but sometimes I still felt confused. I knew if I pushed you to the edge for understanding you'd get upset with me, you'd get frustrated. I always worried and that put you off. When we have the least control over something we try our hardest to figure it out. And some people have the tendency to give up; to say "fuck this" and move on. However, since I'm of the persistent type, I kept going. I kept digging.
And when I heard the quote above I couldn't stop thinking about it. What was I doing wrong? I kept digging myself deeper into a hole of confusion and sadness; a hole to the unknown. I could get hurt or I could get what I always wanted where the digging would be all worth it.
But as the new year approached, I put down the shovel and stopped digging. And to stop after all the work I've done, the patience, the praying, the crying, the longing, was something very new to me. I felt as if I was now letting the unknown happen. To say I gave up on you is not valid because I didn't. In a sense, you let me go. And although it was extremely painful to accept from someone like you, I had to do it for both our sakes. I felt that if fate allowed it, it would happen and I couldn't force you to love me the way I wanted you to. You had things to deal with, fears to battle and a life of your own to improve and make better. I had to do the same because although I thought I spent the year bettering myself, I was simply putting it off and worrying about you instead. Because investing time into worrying whether I'll be able to move forward with you the way I wanted it to happen, the way we planned for it to happen, the way you told me if would happen, was more important than accepting failure and defeat.
Of course there were tears even after the shovel was put down. But in order to even fathom a life with or without you in the future, I had to dig myself out of the hole. This was my year to start over, work on myself and the things I wanted to accomplish for me. I had to do this in order to not only be a better version of me but to hopefully come back to you, at a better time, and start over. That's if you wanted that as well...
There were times and still are times where I think maybe you won't miss me. Maybe you'll forget about me and move on and be able to give someone else what I wanted, what I yearned for. Eventually your feelings for me will dissipate. Thoughts of you being with other people crushed me but I conditioned myself to understand and accept those possibilities.
Of course seeing someone we love love someone else is something very painful and hard to accept. But rather than being angry with you for everything that you've done to me, I was learning to accept that pain, learn from it, grow from it, and know that in the future my life will no longer be filled with this sadness.
I'm not angry, or bitter, or resentful for everything that happened. Some people think I should be, but why should I waste my time constantly being angry at you when I know I'm better than that? You may think you deserve this; that you deserve to be hated by me. But I won't waste my sadness on the past. I can't expect to move forward if I do. I care about you deeply and I pray for you regularly despite what you may think.
Although I'm still curious about some things and I hope for some things to happen, I have to let that come naturally. Again, I never gave up on you and writing you off is something that I won't do even if I did that in previous relationships. I want us both to better our lives and love ourselves first. And I think when we do that and hopefully come back to each other it'll be a beautiful thing. It's okay what happened last year. It's okay if you hurt me. It's okay if you made me cry. We all have to learn from all sorts of pain and when we can accept that, we can learn to grow. I'll think of you even when your eyes don't twitch, and I want us to get out of these holes together. And I have a feeling that we will.
"I pray that you find piece of mind, and I'll find you another time. I'll love you another time." - Ellie Goulding.
