Society approves of you moving on. And do so, quickly. Otherwise, you lose. You lose at pretending to be fine. It doesn’t matter that you have to fake and repress. Just forget. Erase. Discard. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that shit.
When you break up, where does the love go? I was with my ex-husband for a total of 11 years: 8 years of friendship and 3 years of marriage. What is the appropriate time I should’ve taken to get over us? The memories, the laughs, the kisses, the family, the love. 5.5 years?
And my most recent relationship, just 8 months. Quick-quick! I ‘should've' been over him by now, right?
Like Carrie Bradshaw once said: Why are we 'should-ing' all over ourselves?
Whoever said we have to own breakups? Be good at them? ‘Get over him in 10 days. No ice cream. Just 1009 easy steps’ reads the ad to a miracle app. This incessant competitiveness, the need to be efficient and to streamline processes like falling in and out of love, dehumanises us.
Like with the onset of a sore throat in 2020, this idea leaves me anxious. This monolithic way of being, the sense that we should all love the same, get over love the same and cut people from our lives in the same manner. This goes against everything many of us believe. That we are all different and should be allowed to express that freely. Be different, but in a very, very specific way, please.
To me, the best way to fall out of love is to keep loving. This applies to my loves and my friendships. When I don’t feel celebrated, just tolerated, I move on and stop investing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care, or love them anymore. The love has just changed and evolved with time and circumstances. I'd rather feel something than numb myself to everything.
Compete only against yourself in the game of love. As frankly, no one knows a relationship unless they're in it.