"You're never going to be happy with someone if you can't be happy on your own," I told my friend. She was going through the approximately seventh (and supposedly final) break-up over the course of her two-year relationship and was, again, using me as a stand-in therapist.
I'd been listening to her wax philosophical about the reasons for the break-up, the traumas that prevent her from letting go and enjoying life; general "unresolved issues from childhood" with a daddy complex to boot. I may sound unsympathetic, but I'm not. I'm just kind of tired to listening to her complain because it's always the same: "I'm a victim, I'll always be a victim, and I'm never going to do anything to change it."
I know I've done the same annoying moaning and complaining when I've been through heartbreak, I've just never taken two tumultuous years and zero personal accountability to get over it. I lose my patience with people who aren't interested in improving themselves; the attitude that it's everyone else's fault and it's better to sit around feeling sorry for their selves than do something to change their lot in life.
It's not that I don't want to be there for my friend, and don't get me wrong, I have been. I've just been listening to the same old thing... over, and over, and over, and over, and nothing ever changes.
Sometimes I think people come in and out of our lives for a reason. Whether it's karma or fate or luck or destiny, there's always something to be learned from the situation, and always something better around the corner.
My optimism is deeply rooted in the fact that life has always continued to get better for me. Through the darkest, saddest, or scariest times in my life, I've always tried to keep the faith that I could get through it and come out stronger... Tougher... Smarter. And though there's been a battle to fight the fear of repeating past mistakes, I've finally realized that doesn't have to be the case for me. I can make my own life - and I can make it anything I want.
If I hadn't gotten rid of the negative people, negative situations, I never could have made way for better. Whether I knew it or not, something so much better was always coming my way - and fairly quickly. When I think about how scared I was to get divorced, to become a single mother, to change careers, to move across the ocean and start a new life... it's always been hard, and ultimately I've always come out ok. In fact, waaay more than ok.
Maybe I simply choose to live life thinking that way, I don't know. But in my friend's case, she's letting her past hurts disrupt her present and future - and is ready to bury herself in another guy just so she can ignore her loneliness, fears, and feelings of abandonment.
Yes, been there, done that. I know the feeling. But not having the self-identity to realize it shouldn't happen that way is another situation entirely.
"You shouldn't be afraid of being alone," I told my friend. "You shouldn't be afraid of anything." And it's true. But even I need a reminder to keep the faith from time to time.
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