Tuesday | Laying It All Out There: Four and a Half Years Later

I frequently share with people my "break up" story. It happened a full four and a half years ago, but what happened in an instant has had life-changing repercussions that changed the very core of I am as a person and as a Christian woman. To say I learned "so much" feels laughable, as all of what I learned couldn't even be written down in a book. At least not that anyone would want to read, haha. My passion and burden now is to use what I learned to help and encourage other young women who have gone and are going through a break up. **

What I don't like talking about, though, is exactly what I'm making myself talk about right now. And that's how even four and a half years later, it stills hurts sometimes. I don't like talking about that part of it because even though I'm usually pretty quick to be open and honest about myself, to talk about this is opening myself up to a level of vulnerability that even I find myself struggling with.

It was okay for people to know I hurt when it first happened because well, that's what you're supposed to do. But four and a half years later? Sheesh girl, that should be old news. Right? And here's the thing. It is old news. It is in my past. I am over that relationship. There's not a particle of my being that would choose to go back to either that relationship or the person that I myself used to be.

But maybe it's a word someone says or an old picture that will pop up on our computer photo screen saver or maybe a memory will blind-side me out of nowhere or sometimes it just happens...but for like ten seconds, I go back. Back to when I had to watch him walk away or back to those first few months when nothing made sense and everything meant pain. And I remember and I hurt and my chest will feel like it's about to explode with the weight of it and I'll cry. I'll cry because I remember the confused girl who didn't even know the heart could hurt that bad and I'll ache because I remember a once cherished dream that was lost.

But only for a few minutes and then it passes and once again, it's just a thing of the past. But the point is that it happens, even so long after the real pain passes and so many other things have taken it's place. Like the man who loses his leg but still feels those phantom itches where no leg is, so it can be with someone who's heart was shattered when they lost someone who meant the world to them.

So, I don't like to tell people that I still have these little moments every once in awhile, because I don't want you to think I'm still holding on, when I'm not. I don't want you to think I'm not over it, when I am. I don't want you to think I'm still harboring feelings for him, when there's no such feelings there. So, I feel very exposed revealing this bit about me for fear of what you might think, might assume or how you might view me.

And the reason that I'm coming out and saying all this is because it's part of who I am and who knows? maybe it always will be. But the reason I come out and talk about it the most is because I know I'm not the only girl who's had a serious break up who still has these moments and maybe like me at first, she's freaking out because she doesn't know where they keep coming from or what to do with them and maybe she's feeling like something is weird or broken about her.

She's not. Neither is she broken or "damaged goods". It's just the way the heart works and it's okay. It gets easier. Sometimes it gets harder. Sometimes it's not even there at all. But what will always be there is God, who knows it, who sees it, who will heal it and continue to every day renew you even when you don't know you need to be renewed again.

Four and a half years later? It's okay.

* P.S. For the record, when I say "break up," I'm not talking about high school level break ups or the breakups that happen when you date around all the time. No, when I say break ups, I'm talking about the kind where you break up with the person you were about to get married to, who you honestly viewed as your future spouse and who you'd become one with in every way except physical. When you come from the mentality that the first guy you're in a relationship with would be the guy you married, the first guy to say "I love you" would be for forever and every "first" would only be with one person ever, so much so that when you lose that person through a breakup, it's like they literally died. That kind of break up that I mean. Those kinds of break ups are like a death and people who have to walk through them are people who are never the same again.