Opening Up to Love Again

If you’d have told me 3 months ago, I would be where I am today, I would have laughed in your face. 3 months ago, I was utterly heartbroken and didn’t know how I was going to continue living in a world where “Luke and Hannah” didn’t exist anymore. I sobbed most nights, pushed away family and friends and had no motivation to do anything. It of course, didn’t help that buying my first house had been a stressful ordeal in an already emotional time and the life I'd planned for in that home, had disappeared. 


I am pleased to say, I’m out the other side, or at least close. Reading a couple of posts I wrote back then now, makes me feel so dramatic and in way, to some it may have been laughable. In reality, that’s exactly where I was in life and I was at a point where it was either going to break me and I was going to let it, or I had to fight like hell to get through it. 


I booked an appointment at my GP and ended up seeing a mental health nurse specialist. I think I was already probably starting to come out of my lowest point, but being able to talk out loud to someone really helped. I was made to feel that my feelings and emotions were normal and not something to be ashamed of. At one point, I really thought I might have to get anti-depressants, but even that one appointment made me feel so much better and it triggered a turning point. He gave me permission to feel the emotions deeply and acceptance to love hard and to loose love was a grief process. 


Over the next month, I tried to accept things and although it wasn’t easy, I started making plans with friends and seeing family more again. It was probably mid-October when it all clicked. As much as I loved Luke and I will always love him, because he was my first everything, I was more in love with the idea of him, of missing the feelings he gave me. I didn’t miss him as a boyfried, as much as I missed being in a relationship and having a best friend. I got to the stage where I wasn’t sad per se anymore, but I still thought about a promised future that will now never be often. I don’t regret what happened in the 3 years, but I think about the what’s ifs with disappointed. 


Weirdly, it was the community on TikTok that seemed to share these feelings that made me feel like this rarely talked about stage in a break up is normal. I saw one that summed it up perfectly: I realised that the reason I couldn’t move on from him was because I never got to experience all the things I imagined I would do with him. It is possible to be in love with a memory of something that never happened. I’m in love with the idea of love and the idea of the person, but not the actual person themselves - paraphrased from Michelle Paulson. 


One of the lessons I’ve learnt is that you can’t force someone to communicate with you. You can’t get someone to fight for love, and if they’re not willing to put in the same amount of energy, they’re probably not worth your time and effort either. You can’t beg someone to see that the relationship is worth it. 


So I re-downloaded Bumble. I didn’t reach out to the guys I’d spoken to 2 months earlier, but started a fresh to some extent. I opened my heart up to love again and to find that relationship that I no longer craved, but deserved. Are you ready to read about online dating life…?!

“Even though you didn’t make it to the end of my story, I will always keep the corner folded down because it was one of my favourites.” 

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