When transition side swipes me & I find myself reeling in something I don’t completely understand, I tend to shove it all inside, put on a happy face, pull up my positive big girl panties and trudge forward. I’ve always thought this was a great way of “coping”. Who am I fooling?
Today, I’m going to be completely honest and raw ~ if the transition comes up from behind and knocks your world off its axis, well it just sucks.
I was in a relationship, with a great guy. Intelligent, fun, nice looking, kind hearted, thoughtful and a certifiable “commitment phobic”. It’s not me being funny; it is a real deal technical term. This isn’t something I have ever encountered and I am having a very difficult time wrapping my head around it. In a “nut shell” kind of way, I’ll explain. A commitment phobic wants, desires, craves a relationship. They want a great relationship. When they come to a place in a relationship where things are there, at the point of “great”… they freak out. The anxiety of being at that place of complete happy and great in a relationship, what they desire most, scares those most. Often times the one who desired this relationship the greatest is the one that does the most to sabotage it. They start to pick it apart and break it down, causing it to end, and then the quickly move on, or not, to the next relationship. Another way they “cope” when the relationship reaches a comfortable, happy and secure point is they completely disengage. You may have a fabulous date on Monday, ending it with conversation about how great you are, how happy you make them, how things feel so right and how they can’t wait to talk in the morning, to wake Tuesday and you hear nothing. They completely leave the map and you are left behind, no answers, no explanation, nothing.
I will share it is an awful, terrible rotten feeling. When you finally open yourself up to the possibility that there is someone out there who understands you, who ‘gets you’ who truly cares about you, to have it all come crashing down so quickly you’ve no idea what just happened. And to be left standing there, pieces of your heart scattered throughout your body with nothing to justify or even begin to justify the situation of abandonment. Abandoned, left there standing alone in a world that was so together and incredible ~ in a moment notice, gone.
I’ve had a few, ok MANY long talks with myself about how I’d like to “fix this” and have come to the sad conclusion, that this is something more than I am emotionally capable of taking on. I loved him, truly I did. I do. But not in invest myself fully, to be losing all sanity along with more broken pieces kind of way. I don’t comprehend forcing myself onto someone who runs from happy? I can’t do that. And I’m still reeling in the fact that as far as a real commitment goes, it was never insinuated, mentioned or assumed on either of our behalf. We never talked about it. I was under the impression we were still getting to know one another, taking it one day at a time. I was good there.
That brings me to this day, five days later after receiving a text which was our final conversation “I need time to think about us” YES, you read that correctly a text. I picked my phone up to call right back, nothing. So I text and inquire did I do or not do something? To which I received the reply “You didn’t do anything”…. And that was Good Bye. OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!
I am going to open up the possibilities for a new way of life – to be honest when I’m hurting and say OUCH out loud. I’m human, humans get hurt.. I’m certain that God uses these hurts for grown and learning tools, but today I am wanting very much to stick my tongue out and say THUUURRRPPPPP … but I won’t. I won’t because He also gave me the gift of reflection. And when I look back over the past 5 months I see positive seeds that were planted and personal growth that took place. Ohhh I’m not saying that it makes it all better, NO I AM NOT. What I am saying, is that it makes it a little bit easier to swallow in this moment when my heart is hurting.
Happiness is a muscle that you exercise and a way of thinking that is not only practiced with daily positive influence but also with a healthy sense of humor. Transition, it is a special place that can either make or break you ~ depending on your outlook. I tend to find myself trying to find humor in this, any of this, but its impossible. There is nothing humorous about it. SO, I intend to let it MAKE ME… make me appreciate the people in my life who frustrate me, but cause me to grow…. Make me stop and reflect on my own attitude & gratitude and realize that all the bumps in the road make for a stronger me. And to let it make me, take a step back and realize that what we hope for, what we receive and what happens along the way are sometimes unintentional road blocks along the way.
I truly believe that everyone comes into our lives for a reason, a season. You are given gifts through growth, through sharing heart ache, joys, happiness, madness, insights and big fights. What you do with those gifts is up to you. Today, I’m taking all the little gifts that were shared over the past months, putting them inside my little broken pieces of heart and I’m going to do one thing with them – heal from them. A new day, it is up to me what I will make of it… and I have every intention of making it BETTER!
