There’s this thing that happens in endurance sports, like running a marathon, when someone's been exerting themselves for a long time, their energy reserves start to deplete and all of a sudden they feel like they can’t go any further, too tired to move, they stop dead in their tracks; it’s called “hitting a wall.”Well I’ve been running for 9 months now, I'm exhausted, and just ran face first into a wall – never saw it coming.
Making it through a breakup and coming out on the other side a better person takes work. A lot of work. You have to put yourself through quite a bit of self-reflection and analysis. Maybe not everyone does this, but I needed to. I've had to think about what I need to be happy and not just why my relationship didn't work, but what parts both he and I played in not making it work. It takes two to do the crazy tango, you know?
And this takes effort. And recently, I just got so tired of it.
Somewhere around the 9 month mark I started to break down and for a few days I seemed to be right back at Day 1. I really felt like I hit a wall; I stopped dead in my tracks and all thoughts of happily moving on and going forward with my life came to a halt. All I wanted to do was stop, drive to his house, pound on the door and say, “Seriously? What the fuck is wrong with you?!” and then hear him say, “I’m sorry, I’ll change, I’ll make this work.” This whole wacky breakup thing seemed like one big, fleeting mistake.
Um, yeah. Insane, right?
But a phone call with my mom got me thinking. We talked for a while and she made me laugh, and then she said something really poignant, she said, "The thing that gets me is that he still has the power to upset you."
So I thought about that. How does he still have the power to upset me? That doesn't seem right at all. And then I remembered that (a) it's over and (b) he can't upset me anymore because he, in fact, is not around to do so. The only reason I was upset was because I allowed my thoughts of him to upset me. That's kind of ridiculous when you think about it. I don't need that shit. No thanks.
So maybe that's just how you deal with "hitting the wall." You sit down and rest for a minute and think about what is actually getting you down and if you need to, give yourself a break to feel sad for a minute. But don't feel sad for too long, pick yourself back up, remind yourself (however you can) why your relationship didn't work and keep moving on.
Because "hitting a wall" is just a temporary setback. It happens when you work really hard and, for whatever reason, you're just exhausted and maybe vulnerable to unpleasant thoughts. And on those days, I'm doing things that make me happy and keep me moving. I'm remembering all the reasons we are not together and talking about it. Because ultimately, it will pass; and when it does, I'll get up and I'll keeping moving forward with my life just as I've successfully done for a whole 9 months now.
So Dear Readers of my humble blog, have you hit the wall? If so, how did you get through it? I'd love to know because I know I'm not alone.
Photo by *Evelina*
