Stage Two: Life Is Interesting

So there are three stages of a break up. One: the stage when you're still in the relationship, but your know it's over aka MISERY. Two: the stage when it's definitively over, but you're still feeling regret aka MISERY. Three: the stage when you're as over it as you possibly can be and ready to move one. Today, I realized that I and my two best friends fill these three stages.

 Being gray is very dangerous. Or, it can be. Being gray is good when you can look back and see what black looked like. Being gray is good when you can look forward and see what you will be like in the future. When I get the hysterical phone calls from my bestie in Texas, man, it's insane. It's like word for word the things I was saying a year ago. And when I talk to my bestie in Greensboro, I remember that when I met her, she was at the lowest point in her life. She has a drug dealing baby daddy and no job. Now, she has an MBA and is at the top of her field and this all happened within two years of his imprisonment. Today, she and I also realized, that where relationships are concerned, we had to have already gone through the worst of it.

 The point is, things get better. Even when you're in the midst of it, it helps to have friends who give you perspective. One friend shows me how far I've come and the other gives me encouragement to get through where I am. Improvement. Hope. I've never had female friends like this in my life and I am certain I would never have had I not gone through my last relationship.

He knocked me off my high horse and I needed it. I've been rejected and I've done some pretty nasty rejecting, but nothing like this last time. For the first time, I had to seek out someone to be vulnerable to and it just happened to be these two beautiful ladies. I feel incredibly sad--most days, yet incredibly blessed. Humbled.

 My friend who is currently going through it decided to start a journal for the sole purpose of tracking the fluctuations in her misery. She's trying to convince herself; she's looking for a way out. My other friend is at the point of healing where she's finally willing to let her son see his father in prison. Life is crazy. Sometimes it doesn't look like there is a way out. I have to remind myself daily--and on weekends like this when I am alone hourly--that things get better and I will be happy again. Whatever happy is. What my ex and I had was special. For months, almost a year, I've tried to deny that. I tried to pretend like I was okay, unbothered and I think this prolonged me REALLY getting over it. It was special. And although it may not have been once-in-a-life-time kinda love, what we had was rare and we will never find it with anyone else. This isn't a bad thing. This means, love like that does exist. This means, that if I could have something so special with the wrong person, I probably can't fathom what it's going to be like with The One. Life is interesting like that...very grime facts have silver linings.