Oh the things lovers do when
it's done
Find a cool bottle or a warm
shoulder
Wake up older
And try to move on
Ask me who I was a year ago and I’ll tell you to listen
to this song sung by Julie Roberts.
After a year of avoiding it, tonight I finally clicked My
Documents and sought out my picture folders from 2009 and 2010—the disaster years. Fear of reliving that pain has kept me from
looking through them these last eleven months, but
tonight God urged me to center my cursor and double-click.
I came face to face with myself. I saw fake-smile after fake-smile, each like
a band-aid trying cover up the wounds on my heart. Each
grimace was an attempt to mask an emptiness—an overwhelming sense of sadness
and confusion. I relied on men to pull
me through life, literally. I would die
for attention. I was beyond broken, the girlfriend of a man who hurt me every day. And I was fine with it. I thought that was happiness—or as close to happiness as I could ever experience. And so I stayed. Broken nights in hotel rooms,
drunk nights at dance clubs, fights about infidelity, lowered standards and
feelings of loneliness, confusion, and insecurity were all I came to know.
I’ve held so much pain over those two years of my
life. The mere thought of him used to bring me emotionally to my
knees. But I looked at his face
tonight. I looked over our
memories. I saw our life together. And I mourned.
For the first time I mourned not for the loss, but for how lost we were…how lost I
was. Somehow the pain transformed
itself into sadness.
This forgiveness stuff isn’t easy. There is so much aching, self-examination, reconciliation,
and sadness that must be experienced. It’s not easy. And I don’t like it. But it’s the baby steps that move us
along. As the time comes for me to mourn
and forgive each of my broken relationships, I just pray to God for strength to relive important moments,
examine my decisions, and find the roots of my heart motives.
Is it really better to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at all?
Yes. Even through this bitter pain, I say yes.
Because it is only through pain we are forced to
grow.
And I so desperately want to grow that the pain is becoming worth
it.
And so I move on from yesterday’s news and turn away from him, leaving behind, but remembering, everything that was.
With the closing of another chapter of my life, I am more determined than
ever to be stronger than the girl who once looked at me from behind the
mirror.
Doesn't happen overnight,
but you turn around and a month’s gone by,
And you realize you haven't
cried.
I'm not giving you an hour
or a second or another minute longer.
I'm busy getting stronger.
