Escaping the memories of your past relationship and mourning is hard. It takes a while to move on and you start to lose hope that there actually is light at the end of this seemingly never ending tunnel.

The moment you get out of a long relationship your self-esteem will be the lowest it’s been in awhile. You feel like you’re walking around with all these ugly labels you and your past relationships left you with. “You’re not enough.” “You’re unloveable.” “You’re not funny.” “You’re embarrassing.” “You’re not attractive.” “You’re clingy.” How can you walk through life confident that you’ll meet someone else if you’re walking around feeling like that?

Feeling defeated and waking up every morning thinking this pain in your chest will never go away, you’ll never laugh again or vibe with a guy. You start honestly thinking you’re better off alone. You even start to convince yourself dramatically that you’re unmatchable, one of those people that is just meant to be alone because you can’t make anything work. You wonder if you’ll ever meet a guy again that you like.

Moving on is complicated and emotional, a process filled with drunken nights texting your ex, crying with a large pizza, and sabotaging meeting a new guys realizing an hour later that the only thing you’ve been talking about is your ex is and how much you hate men. Then you go home alone, watch sad movies and eat shitty food and try to pretend like the above mentioned never happened. You wake up the next day with a massive headache and think it’s no wonder no one is lining up at the door to wake up next to this. How can we act so dramatic and hopeless over one person not choosing us? But trying to mend your ego back to good health after someone moves on from you is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do.

Once you can break free from the self-pity, you see it as less of a personal attack against your worth and you can begin healing. You start to get yourself back, bit by bit. You remember slowly who you were before you started to merge with someone else. You remember who you are behind all these messy feelings and irrational thoughts. You start to emerge into the real world and meet yourself again. And suddenly you realize that it’s starting to get better.

Then you meet someone. Someone who gives you hope. Someone who laughs at all your jokes, that you have a ton in common with, and makes you not hate the existence of men. Someone who looks at you like you’re something really special and the feelings of hope come rushing back to you. You remember what it’s like to have someone appreciate you, and see the real you. See that you are a cool person to be around, and people do enjoy your presence and want to be around you. All the sudden it’s been a few months, you haven’t stopped smiling, and laughing. You haven’t sent any drunk messages, you haven’t played one sad Lumineer’s, you haven’t even thought of their name, you’ve moved on.

You’re happy, in fact so much so that you haven’t even thought about everything you once thought you “lost.”

Instead you realize that the person you are right now, today, is happy. The person that they are seeing, this is the person you always were but you forgot to see. This is the person people see, but you forgot existed. Without him you are not halved, you’re still whole. This is the real you, the you that’s been through pain and suffering but came out even happier than before.

You think you lost your true happiness the day he left you, but I promise you no matter how long it takes you, you didn’t lose anything that wasn’t worth losing. You lost what you needed to lose in order to meet people, or someone, who sees you and appreciates you. It gets better, I promise you.