From Deep Within

As most of you reading this already know, from this post and the dearth of blogging following it, last week was not a particularly good week for me. This week is not shaping up to be too much better. It seems that no matter how much I try to get away from certain things, they continue to pop up, usually just when I start to feel to fog lift and see the sunlight beyond the dreariness of my current situation and mood.

The thing that happened last week was particularly upsetting, and just sort of kept piling on as well, so it brought all of the old stuff back up again, the stuff I thought I’d gotten past already. So that’s what made it especially bad. I think perhaps I as just in denial about being over some of it, in an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of way, or possibly in a self-delusional way as well. I mean, if I were over things the way I thought I was and the way I should you, the happenings of last week wouldn’t have hit me nearly as hard as they did.

I’ve never been one to get over things easily or quickly. So these feelings have lingered a bit longer than they should have. I’m still in something of a funk over it. But that’s the way it goes.

My mother was talking to me the other day, and she said that she’s heard that it’s harder to get over being left by someone you love rather than the death of someone you love. I’m not sure I believe that’s true. She was saying it to try and comfort me over my lingering sadness and issues surrounding the end of my relationship. I appreciated it, but I didn’t honestly believe it was true. She said that people say it’s harder because with death, at least there is finality. It may be harder or more difficult initially, but it’s over and done with all at once, whereas with a break-up there are lingering concerns that flare up from time to time that mean it is never really over.

I’ve thought about it a little bit since then, and then I was reading something the other day that made me think of something else that might make it easier, though even now I’m still skeptical. When someone you love dies, you can sometimes be comforted by the fact that, if they were alive, they would still love you and still be proud of you and still want to be with you and know you and share with you and all the rest. When someone leaves you though, the exact opposite is true. That person obviously doesn’t love you anymore, and doesn’t want to be around you anymore, and that makes it harder to move on because it makes it harder to feel good about yourself. When someone you love dies, you can imagine them looking in on you from beyond, or imagine how happy or proud or whatever they would be of you if they were only there. It might be sad that they aren’t, and bring about a little pang of sorrow or whatever. But it doesn’t actually make you feel worse about yourself. It doesn’t make you feel rejected.

It’s hard to deal with rejection, especially if, like me, you are already prone to being down on yourself.

I still don’t think I buy that it’s harder, though. It shouldn’t be at any rate. Though it did make me think for a brief moment if I’d prefer it if my ex had died rather than dumped me and started seeing someone else. It didn’t take me too long to conclude that I wouldn’t prefer that at all. Not only would I be in as much, if not more, pain, but it would hurt too many other people that I care about and would cut his life short, which I wouldn’t wish at all, even if it meant I would experience significantly less pain than I have over the past few months.

I have, more than once, and not without sadness, wished that I could go back to the moment I first met him and that I could hold onto that initial impression I had of him, rather than getting to know him and growing to like him and then to love him. I would lose a lot of pleasant memories, ones that still make me smile despite myself, but I would also lose a whole lot of pain, and when I thought of him, if I did at all, it would be as someone inconsequential and insignificant to me. Still, even this is unsatisfactory.

Don’t know what made me go off on that tangent. It’s not that it’s not relevant, but it’s not what I wanted to say. The past week has taught me some things. I need to make some changes, some of which you’ll be hearing about, because they will involve this blog.

But I’ll save that for another post. Look for it tomorrow.