Moving On

The hardest thing I’ve had to do in my life is to try to move on. The constant, almost nagging, questions I got from friends, family and well wishers pushed me to think about this every single day post my break up. Had I moved on? What will it take for me to move on? Do I not care about him anymore? Is it time to find a new man? Frustrating as it was, I decided I needed to find these answers for myself.

A random heated argument with my love had led to a five year old relationship being torn apart. I can’t even remember the reason for the argument anymore but egos had flared to an extent that there was no going back now. I felt petty and stupid to have thrown away THE relationship of my life but all my attempts at damage control had been thwarted by my man. Had I hurt him too much? Was he being stubborn? Did he not feel as strongly for me? Were we not meant to be? Was this really the end of my fairytale? I asked myself these questions every single day.

For months together, I woke up with a heady mix of emotions. Despair, Anger, desolateness filled my days and nights. I buried myself in work to divert my mind from the constant hammering in my head but it only made me live through my day. The nights were unbearable. The quiet of the winter made me hear my own heartbeat. I would stare at the ceiling, lying on my bed, for hours on end hoping that maybe, maybe this was just a phase and he would call me and tell me this was just a big mistake.

Months passed but that call never came. I soon had begun to accept that the relationship was over for good. I had learnt to swim in the ocean of pain and my head was now pushing to reach the surface.  Acceptance had healed me in a lot of ways. I was no longer angry with him. His reasons, now, seemed like they could have been true. I stopped doubting what we had. I knew our relationship was real and whatever happened was, maybe, the hand we were dealt.

The entire moving on cycle- Betrayal, Anger, Despair, Acceptance played out several times and I went from “I hate him” to “I don’t care about him” to “There’s no way I’m going back to him” to “It’s okay, maybe this was it”. The questions which haunted me were now not that difficult to answer. Or at least so I thought. Had I moved on? Yes. Did I not care about him anymore? Umm.. Well just a little maybe. Was I affected by him everyday? No. Did I need him back? No. Had I moved on? Yes. Did I still love him? Yes.

Ironic as it it, I had learnt that loving someone did not necessarily mean wanting him, being with him or not wanting any other man. Loving someone did not mean, I had not moved on. Moving on for me was just a process to come to terms with the fact that I was not going to be with him and that a life without him was foreseeable. It did not change how I felt for him. If I was to see him today, after 18 odd months since we broke up, I would still want to give him a tight hug. I would still smile at his stupid jokes. I would still wish we hadn’t thrown it away. That’s what love does to you. Running away to say I had moved on and I didn’t care about this man was never going to be the solution. The only way out was to know that love will remain.

Had I moved on? Yes.