By Walking Away From You I Can Finally Learn What Healing Really Means

Heartbreak hurts. There’s no mathematical formula or accurate step by step process that can make it go away — or at least make it less painful. I wish I can pull out all the broken pieces of me on the inside and heal them with my bare hands, but I know that’s not how it works. I know that time can only fix everything that has been damaged inside of me.

If I’m really going to be honest, it’s not the relationship fall-out that hurts the most. It’s seeing the person you used to love become so happy without you. It’s watching them walk past you in a crowded room and pretend like they don’t recognize you. It’s wanting to hug them one more time and tell them how exhausted you are.

People say that the easiest way to get over someone is to put yourself away from them. But all I’ve been doing lately is to cut the spaces between us. All I do, when I’m alone, is visit your social media and check what you’ve been up to. All I want to do, in the middle of the night, is to find you in my contacts and call you just to say how much I still love you, how I wish we can be back together, how I want you to choose me over and over again.

All I’ve been doing lately is to hurt myself more — and this needs to stop.

I’ve cried enough tears to realize that, ultimately, I’m the only person who can help myself be better. I have to try hard to completely drop you out of my life. I have to learn how to not remember you when I close my eyes, when I stare at a dark, empty sky, when the breeze blows my hair.

I have to learn how to walk away from you even if I know it’s going to be hard. I need to remind myself what happiness is like even if you’re not around. There are so many things that I want to achieve in this world and I don’t want to grow miserable and hold myself back from enjoying this life just because you didn’t love me the way I loved you. I don’t want to arrive in the future regretting the time that I wasted thinking of you.

I’m tired of getting my hopes so high only to have you disappoint me and crush my soul. I need to start allowing myself to heal, one day at a time. And by losing my grip on our memories together, I know that one day, I can finally understand why you only stayed in my story temporarily. I can finally learn how to clean the mess that you brought in my life. I can finally learn how to be brave and cross mountains and sail any ocean on my own. 

By telling myself that life is still so beautiful despite my brokenness, I can learn how to smile confidently. I can appreciate every waking moment that I have and enjoy the rest of the day. I can go back to bed at night knowing that despite my frustrations about the things that I can’t control, there are still so many things to be grateful for. There are still so many reasons why I should never hide my teeth on the back of my lips.

Right now, I am choosing to find my way back home after spending most of the time chasing you. I am reclaiming the freedom that you took from me when you held my hands tightly beside you. I am rebuilding my walls, brick by brick, and making a pact to myself to never let anyone like you enter my life. I am picking up the courage to stand up and rely on my own self.

I know that my feelings for you will begin to fade as seasons change. All these wounds will turn to scars and I’ll look back in the future recognizing them as tokens from the battles that I survived. This heartache will serve as a reminder that I did get over you, and that no pain is meant to last for eternity, regardless of its magnitude.

Patience will help me heal. And I am willing to wait for the time when I can finally admit to myself that there’s no single trace of you in my heart anymore. And despite the likelihood of seeing you again someday, I know that I will be completely unfazed by your presence. Because I am positive that, by then, I am one hundred percent healed from the brokenness that you gave me.