There’s a fine line between leaving space in your heart for someone and torturing yourself on the daily.
I was having a chat with the Giant post both of our respective break ups.
I gave the usual explanation that when one suffers a loss there is a hole left in your life that needs to be navigated around lest you fall in and have to keep climbing out of repeatedly.
Time fills the hole, which is actually made of time itself, oddly enough.
Time you would have spent texting the person or looking for funny memes or whatever your part of the relationship looked like is suddenly free and in your hands.
The weight of it is enormous.
This is why that whole “have your own life that you love before you invite someone else in” thing is pretty important. Makes the hole a lot smaller and the weight a lot less. Also keeps you from tripping back into things you ought not to.
He’s healing and dealing.
We all do.
My process is a lot more streamlined than it used to be, probably because I love my little life as is.
There is however another issue.
The whole reason for this post.
We all know the void and the tripping hazard it is, but what about the garbage left behind?
Look at every major festival (that isn’t Burning Man). The chaos left in the wake by thousands of concert goers, all around for a good time not a long time.
Every person is responsible for spoiling and littering on some of the landscape right? Everyone leaves something behind.
Sometimes it’s a permanent scar and sometimes its just a carelessly tossed piece of trash.
Those are tripping hazards too.
I’m speaking to a new boy. We had a date already and I like him.
During the talking portion he said something completely innocent and founded, but I got triggered and tripped up on it.
In hindsight, after a little time had passed and we’d actually met, it wasn’t a big deal.
But, because I haven’t finished cleaning up after the last one, I saw a red flag.
So how do we distinguish between red flags and just some garbage the last one left behind?
I wish I knew.
Giant says he is using this last relationship as a learning experience to figure out what to avoid.
Sorry puddin’, doesn’t work that way.
We all have our BIG NO’s. But in the grand scheme of things, the heart wants what it wants.
For example, after how hard it was to get over that boy, by all rights and logic we shouldn’t be speaking. He is not my person, I know this, but he is my people. And with enough time gone by, my head has filled in that hole in my heart with logic and reason. So it’s okay. The playing field is level.
Red flags absolutely serve a purpose, but one must wait until red is not the only color you see everywhere before jumping into something new. I didn’t quite do that, and I realized it just in time.
PTSD does not have to be a permanent state of mind. At some point your brain begins to realize that your body is in the present and you are not in danger anymore.
But until it does, there will be triggers.
Something will remind you of ‘the thing that came before’ and the mess that was left.
Time heals, it really does. Grass grows back green and lush, so will you.
The other thing you can do, which is what I did…is say it out loud. See if it feels like truth on your tongue. Weigh it in the scales of your gut, does it feel light and right or heavy and wrong.
I realized that I was being ridiculous and decided to try anyways.
I’m so glad I did.
