How many of you have been in long term relationships that ended in a lesson instead of your goal? How many of you have had your heart broken to the point that you questioned if you honestly could ever look love in the face again? What about the person who never took love seriously because they were burned 1 time, and for them that 1 time was way more than enough. I am going to let you in on a little secret. It wasn’t love’s fault. It wasn’t love who let you down, it sure as hell wasn’t love who walked out the door. I know this because, if it was love how are you still here today, living. I want you, to do something that even as I am writing this gives me such a strong feeling of anxiety, but authenticity is what I am best at so we’re living this together… picture your darkest, most painful heartbreak. You know the one I am talking about. Now picture how you got over that.
You got over it by learning to love again, but it wasn’t another person you learned to love, it was yourself.
See maybe love isn’t what you’re afraid of losing again, maybe you are truly afraid of losing yourself. Because after all it was you, you found after your heart was shattered.
It was you and the help of your girlfriends/guyfriend and if I can guess large amounts of in my case champagne and vodka in other cases wine and tequila. But you, are how you survived, and you are what you risk if that love you are tiptoeing around or dipping your toe in again, risk losing if it doesn’t work out.
Here is where I tell you, that it is just fear talking. I know because I was you.
I put my whole heart on the table for someone who didn’t love me back.
Looking back now, I am so glad it didn’t work out with him, because through him I learned more about myself than I ever thought possible.
He was the first person I dated after Cole’s dad. Bet that surprises you. That it isn’t Cole’s dad I am talking about. But not all people you date in high school end up being your person, just as the person who rescues you from that isn’t always the hero you thought he was at the time. When I met this said person I was in a place of rebuild, figuring out who I was, what I wanted and was a “newer” single mom. I say newer for lots of reasons, but we’ll leave it at for once I was finally done breaking years of a cycle that should’ve been broken a long time prior to that.
He was everything I wanted and needed him to be. Until he wasn’t. I figured out later that when you haven’t quite learned to love yourself that just because something from afar might seem good, they are far from good. This is not me saying at all that he is a bad guy, that he is a bad person or that he is some monster he wasn’t and isn't. But if life has taught me anything it is not every person is your person. I will say this though, for those years, he was exactly who I needed then.
He taught me that I can live anywhere, a house is just a building, the people in it make the home.
He taught me that no amount of money or lack thereof is what actually makes me happy, Cole is. Or people. (This lesson at the time was the hardest looking back, I am the most grateful for this particular lesson though out of all the lessons he taught me).
He taught me that some friends are there for life no matter how they came into your life.
Most important thing he taught me is all the things I learned about myself because of him.
I learned that Cole and I were capable of driving 2600 miles by ourselves in a car, no matter what happened to us or what weather we drove through.
I learned that Texas was great, but California will always be home.
I learned all that I am willing and not willing to give up in a relationship for another person.
I learned my self worth.
The most important lesson I learned is that I am the most important person I need to love, because until I love me, how can I heal and how or why would anyone else love me.
I thank him in my prayers everyday, even though for those of you who know what we went through might wonder why, but I thank him for all the lessons he taught me, and I taught myself because of him. I honestly thank him for walking out the door too. Because I never would have and had he not, I wouldn’t have what I have now, and what I have now is my person.
The ultimate gift he gave to me was Mark.
See without this heartbreak, I might not have been at my best friend’s wedding. If I was I never would have been open to jumping on some strangers lap, let alone pretending they were my boyfriend. I never would have tagged them in a funny comment, leading him to message me and all of that leading to our beautiful untraditional crazy love story.
Without my biggest heartbreak, the one that makes me tear up even thinking about, the one that I questioned if I was doing the right thing even after driving 2600 miles home… I’d never have what I have now.
A girl who loves herself first, has her greatest love story ever, someone who loves her more than life, and refell in love with adventure.
I didn’t lose myself by giving love a chance again, I found myself. I found all the things I needed to find again or maybe never realized I even needed. I learned who I was what I wanted and most of all who my person was. I am not saying it was easy or that it didn’t take time, but I will say that it was all worth it and I would never look back and change the journey I went on to get where I am today.
If you are wondering why me, why this heartbreak, why does love not last… Maybe start asking yourself why this lesson, am I loving myself and how happy was I really?
Because if I am being honest, I would rather be broke, homeless and adventuring the world with Mark, than rich and doing whatever it is I thought I wanted with that other person.
So, find your way of getting through your heartbreak, gather your tribe, dance it out, cut your hair, watch every sad movie… but most of all learn and then learn to love the person who matters most, yourself. Because prince charming or your warrior princess is waiting, you just never know whose lap you’re about to jump on.
I would love to hear your stories after heartbreak or during. Share them with me in the comments below, message me or share them with me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/coutureurlife/. I am a firm believer in sharing as a great way of self-growth and a way to overcome, so let’s all overcome these heartbreaks together. Because if I have advice for anything in life, its advice on heartbreak
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