“And you are someone who has walked through a bunch of rainstorms and kept putting one foot in front of the other. And I think… I think that I keep learning every day, but after learning for 25 years, the one thing I do know is that pain does make you a stronger person. And I do know that walking through a bunch of rainstorms, and continuing to put one foot in front of the other, makes you clean.” -Taylor Swift
I left a bar with my best friends, as the bartenders stamped our hands. Without looking down at it, my friends waited for my reaction. And soon enough, I looked at my hand, to see his initials stamped across my hand. Which didn’t make any sense because the bar wasn’t even called that.
Had this been a year ago, anyone even saying his name, might have left me in a drunk puddle of tears. But there I was just looking at this thinking, ‘this may either foreshadowing a text I’ll ignore, or the universe applauding me, and recognizing that it had been a while since we spoke.’ And there I was still functioning, despite a goodbye that broke my heart, I stood there okay.
“I’m glad I didn’t get that fucking stamp,” my best friend said.
“The stamp will come off, but sadly the memory of him, is engraved in all of us,” my other friend said.
I couldn’t say anything really, when your friends watch someone treat you poorly, they don’t just hate the person just because. They hate them for every reason you should, but can’t find it in your heart to.
When they asked how long it’s been since we spoke, I knew the exact days, but I just replied “I don’t even know.”
Unhealthy relationships, I compare to hurricanes. They come unwelcome and you honestly never think it’s gonna be that bad. So you stay put. Next thing you know the wind is roaring, shingles on the roof are flying off, and by the time you realize how bad it actually is, you’re in the eye of the storm and there’s no way out.
You realize the only way out of this thing is through. The storm passes and suddenly you are left to pick up the pieces, of all that has been left behind. But the true beauty isn’t the loud silence the day after, but rather that you survived it.
That’s what it feels like getting over someone, who came in like a stage 5 hurricane. You feel like you’ve survived in a way.
You look back at it all and this person, who once had you dialed. They told you to jump, and you said how high. They had you attached to strings almost, like a puppet, controlling every move. But then, it’s like you cut yourself free of their grip.
And at first it’s scary. How do you even function without this person who played such a large part of your life? Because storms are never all bad, it’s the good things you hold onto, when the wind comes roaring and it’s dark.
But then you see yourself making it. You see yourself not looking back, but instead looking forward. You realize you aren’t defined, by this one relationship, but rather every other good relationship you have in your life.
“There isn’t a person who has a bad thing to say about you Kir, even if he’s the only one who does, that’s only one person,” my friend said.
His name tasted bitter coming off of all of our tongues. But there are some storms that always will. There’s always that one storm that changed everything in history.
And if you aren’t there yet, if you still think you need this person to function, and you can’t imagine your life without them, just keep going. You’ll get there. You’ll stand on your own two feet, stronger because of it.
Strength isn’t defined in how we hold back our tears, but rather allowing ourselves to cry over someone or something, then getting up again and not letting yourself cry over the same thing ever again.
Because one day when the storm is over and the mess is cleaned up, with the help of your loyal friends, you’ll rise again. And maybe then, you’ll realize what you deserve and that it was never that.
You find yourself not crying yourself to sleep, for the first time in a while. You sleep through the night without seeing them in your dreams. You wake up and they aren’t your first thought. You look at pictures and it no longer hurts.
You realize you are over it. And there is no better feeling than that moment.
Then one day, you meet someone and are a bit nervous, as you go on a first date. You sit across from a stranger and realize, sometimes the most beautiful parts of storms, is it finally being over and you having made it out on the other side.
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