You can ask the universe for signs all you want, but ultimately we only see what we want to see, when we're ready to see it - Ted (How I Met Your Mother)
I am a firm believer in signs, that things don't just happen by chance, that not everything is just coincidence. This drives some of my friends crazy, but it happens. Little things, like a certain song coming on the radio at a certain time - a song that maybe I haven't heard on the radio in years, but has meaning now because of something. Or something as random as having the same favorite episode of Saved by the Bell. Who even remembers the episodes, let alone, has a favorite? FYI: It;s the murder mystery episode. But Coach and I discovered we had the same favorite one and I took that as at least meaning SOMETHING. Stupid, right? But the whole time was filled with things like that, some signs big, some small, but all of them said the same thing: this is good, this is where you're supposed to be.
Here's the thing I have realized in the last couple weeks though since Coach and I broke up - something he actually had the nerve to tell me he didn't see it as, even after ten months - I was such an idiot. I was so busy focusing on the things that meant the relationship was good and right, that I ignored plenty of signs, or red flags, all throughout the relationship that told me I needed to get out, that I would never get what I really wanted. And I ignored them because they were bad and they were things that would have made me end it if I had taken the time to look at them all objectively, which I did not want to do because he had me convinced that I was happy. I was miserable for ten months, I see it now, but I thought I was happy at the time because whenever we were together, it just felt right. And we were together a lot. I ignored the fact that as time went on, when we weren't together I became more and more insecure about what he might be doing when I wasn't around. But we talked every day, all the time, about everything. And regardless of how it ended, I do believe him at least when he said that I had become one of his best friends. You can't manufacture that kind of closeness, that comfortableness you have in sharing all kinds of information about every aspect of your life. Or almost every aspect, as I discovered later.
In the end, the best advice I can give is trust your instincts. No matter how sickeningly happy you think you are, if there is a little voice in the back of your head telling you that something is truly, legitimately wrong, end it. It will hurt for a while, but far less if you end it early on than wasting a year of your life on someone who never really cared enough about you to tell you the truth in the first place.
I'm a sign believer person too, but a closeted one. Dang! Guess I just outed myself. Thing is I don't like to read the signs either not if they're going to lead to the end of a relationship, even if it was a waste of time non-functioning unhealthy relationship. I'd rather read them loud and clear ... after it's over. You know, when the kicking myself commences.
ReplyDeleteThat's the stage I'm in right now and I hate it because over and over I feel like such an idiot. These are things I knew I should pay attention to, but I ignored them because when I was with him and he smiled at me and kissed my forehead and held my hand, I didn't want to think he could do those things and still be able to hurt me. I only wanted to acknowledge the good signs because they supported what I wanted it to be, you know?
ReplyDeleteOh I know. I know exactly. It's one thing to be able to see clearly that a friend's relationship is a sham and you want to shake them and say "wake up and smell the crappy relationship you're in!", but it's a whole other story to be honest with yourself and with that honesty risk losing that euphoric feeling of being with this guy that's so seemingly marvelous when you're there with him and windup alone. It seems the fear of loneliness is greater when I am in a doomed-going-no-where relationship that I just don't have the nerve to get out of and that fear is what keeps the rational me from reading all the signs, that fear is what keeps me falling deeper into the trap of this doomed relationship. And yet when I'm single, with no man in sight to cloud my judgment, the loneliness I feared so much isn't half as bad as the ups and downs of the fraudulent relationship...but I never remember that when I'm in the fantasy world of "this one, who isn't calling when he'll say he'll call and breaking dates, could be happily ever after"! And so the cycle continues over and over...
ReplyDeleteLooking back at it, I would agree 100%. I was so insecure and nervous about losing even the up-and-down relationship that we had because when we were together, or when he did sweet things for me, it made me really want to believe that that's how our relationship really worked. But looking back at those weekends that I fretted and assumed and bothered my friends with wild scenarios about why he wasn't around, it was so stressful. And it stressed my friends out too, because they couldn't do anything to help me, just give advice that I didn't even listen to and should have. Now I'm stressed in a different way I guess, and it's not so much stress actually, as just grief right now, because it is a grieving process in recovering. Now I don't really have to think about where he is or what he is doing, because it doesn't have an effect on me anymore or on our relationship because we no longer have one. And even though I am sad right now, the more I focus on how 'down' it was, the easier it will be to move on, right? But then I feel bad sometimes for only focusing on the bad, because the good could be really good.
ReplyDeleteMy breakup "healing" song. =)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_50-gOeBilc&ob=av3e
Love it. I have to share it :)
ReplyDelete