In elementary school, I used to have a bologna sandwich for
lunch nearly every day from K-4. I loved it. Bologna sandwiches were freaking
awesome, especially the way my mom made them. Yay, Bologna, you were a
constructive part of my then-current state of happiness! Having that sandwich
was fulfilling, beneficial to my health at the time, and it usually made me
feel much better at the end of the day. Then one day I realized I had been
eating bologna sandwiches for the past four years, and I just lost my taste for
the pseudo meat.
Haven’t had bologna since. I don't hate it, but...eh. I can do better.
Whether you’re a friend of mine or not, just understand that
telling an adult, “I’m sorry, everything happens for a reason,” or, “it’s for
the best,” is akin to cramming a bologna sandwich down a mouth that has already
had 15,000 bologna sandwiches. Let’s not get this misunderstood, though: If a
friend of mine throws me one of those phrases while trying to comfort and
support me, I’ll love it. I need to hear that in the beginning stages of grief.
(By the way, thank you so much to all of you who have reached out to me.) But
in order to progress later on, hearing that “things will eventually get better” won’t do
the trick.
This isn’t really about repetition or wear of cliché phrases,
though. It’s about how I have to do more than just keep them on repeat,
thinking I’ll wake up one day cured of this mess because “it happened for a
reason.”
Mom, my in-home professional life coach (seriously), gave me
some reading material today that covered exactly what I’m feeling. It was so
relevant I could barely get through a page without losing my vision due to
cloudy, teary eyes. But there was gold in them there pages, I tell ya.
It’s a little confusing to explain why this was so effective
for me because I’m already so used to being “life-coached” by my mom. It’s like
a foreign language for some people to grasp these concepts I’m about to go
over, but bear with me while I try to run through this. It’ll help someone else
down the line, and that’s the ultimate pat-on-the-back for me.
Here’s my takeaway from the reading:
1.
Everything I’m feeling right now is natural. It
is okay to be sad, depressed, angry, and not want to get out of bed all day…in
the raw stages, at least.
2.
Getting drunk or smoking weed or cigarettes or the
like will only prolong my recovery and keep me in an immature state of mind.
3.
The reasons I resent him are actually just
mirrored reasons why I resent myself. (But still....amiright?)
4.
The reasons why I resent myself are the exact things
I need to work on in myself in order to grow and mature.
5.
I need to treat myself the way I wanted to be
treated by him—I need to understand that I never got the treatment I wanted
from him because I couldn’t treat myself in the same way.
You’re like, “But Shannon, what
did you even say in numbers 3-5?” Or maybe you’re just all, “Well, duh.” But
this was the beginning of a breakthrough for me.
Without getting into too many
personal “waah, poor me” details, I’ll just say this:
In every single way that I was
hurt by him, if I turned the situation around on myself, I was actually the one
guilty of all the mistreatment. He never put me first—I always put him first, I
never put myself first. He obviously had no respect for commitment—I’ve actually
felt guilty for years for not committing to myself, my writing and my own goals.
He rarely ever made the extra effort for me—I rarely ever put any effort into
my own happenings, I was too concerned with his. He’s a slimy little prick—well,
I’ll just let him have that one.
See? The problems I had with him
are actually problems I felt within myself that weren’t resolved. You know the
phrase, “You have to love yourself before you can love someone else.” That’s
exactly what I’m trying to illustrate. These same issues would keep arising in
the next relationship I’d be in again and again until I finally resolved it
within me.
Most people don’t get that. I don’t
blame them, it’s not an easy pill to swallow—realizing that every problem you
have in your life can only be resolved from within. There’s no SuperMan (see
what I did there?) coming to fix the problems I had in my last relationship.
There’s a SuperMe, and she’s the only one qualified for the job.
From now on, I’m putting myself
first. Sorry ‘bout it, but I am the only one I can trust, I’m the only one in
control of my life, and I’m the only one who really knows what I want. I have
to learn to listen to my intuition, my little inner voice, more acutely and do
what’s best for me—and me only.
From now on, I’m committing to
myself. I’m forcing myself to write every day because that’s what I should’ve
been doing since I was 16. I wanted to have my first book written by my 22nd
birthday, and thinking about this failure really hurts me inside. The same kind of hurt I feel because of him,
by the way. Weird…..
And from now on, if an extra push
is necessary for me to progress with my life, I’ll finally suck it up and make
it. My affinity for laziness tempts me to take the easiest road sometimes, and
this easy route rarely takes that extra effort needed to achieve greatness.
Since I happen to be destined for greatness, I have no choice but to make that
effort for myself.
I hope some of this was useful for
someone out there. I’m a long way from being okay, but at least I know I’m not
pushing back the due date by not acknowledging my feelings. I haven’t touched a
drop of alcohol, nor do I want to; I haven’t depended on any (shouldn’t-be)-illegal
substances for an escape. I embrace the pain. I’m not hard on myself for
feeling hurt. I just want to feel as fulfilled in my life as I possibly can as
quickly as possible. And everyone is deserving of this deep solace.
Hey, you know, scummy things
happen to good people. But I promise, this will be my bottom. I’m going to work
on myself like I never have before, and I’ll look back on this guy and laugh
about how truly green I was to think he had any power over me or my feelings.
Ah, I can't wait. In more ways than one, one day I'll have gone from eating bologna to filet mignon. And I do love me some filet mignon.
