An event has occurred, and you can no longer cling to your falsely held beliefs. You’ve seen the big picture and quite frankly, it’s not so purty. So, what now? Well, as soon as you process the event itself and the fall out, you need to address the state of your relationship. You need to take the information that the universe has delivered to you and figure out what that really means. I encourage you to not talk yourself out of this adventure, but rather, to approach it with two feet in. Full steam ahead. Total dedication and complete buy-in.
Let’s fast forward and assume that you’ve healed. Now you need to look at your relationship or friendship or job or living situation or family or car or whatever is the cause of distress and decide how you want to proceed. This is where most of us fuck things up. This is where we circle back to the notion that there has to be a decided cause behind everything in the universe and….and, that cause must make perfect sense to us. We need to hear or read the message and have that moment where we go ‘ahhh, yeah, I get it’. We desperately want to solve the cosmological riddle.
Dear universe, please make this make sense. Thank you. Love, All of us.
Sorry to break your hearts here, but I imagine that you’ve already guessed that on the best day, that’s a long shot. You know what the funny bit is? We say all the time that people are mean or shitty and definitely selfish. We sprinkle labels and descriptors into our conversations, condemning human behavior as a general rule. The issue is whether or not we actually believe all of that or it’s just another one of those throw away lines that I was talking about last week. Or, more often than not, we do accept that people are shitty but we just can’t imagine that the people closest to us would fall into that category. It seems infeasible or at least farfetched.
We will vacillate though. We will call someone an asshole and then praise them in the next breath. We will identify someone in our heart of hearts as a human to steer clear of, and then we will get in as close as humanly possible. We don’t use these labels to make better decisions, we use them to create enough psychological distance for observers. We are more concerned about the perception of a thing than our real deal emotional health.
Okay, well what if we get to the ‘ring-side spectators be damned’ point? We have seen someone’s really murky colors or seen the futility in a situation and there is no turning back. So, we need to understand it. Why would they do this to me? How could they treat me this way? Why don’t they treat other people this way? Why couldn’t I be the person they chose as their best friend/partner/work buddy, etc.? What is happening in their life that is causing them to act this way? What did I do to make this mess so messy?
We need it all to make sense in our heads. We need to get it. We need to fucking understand. Make it make sense.
I’m going to share the tough part of this that you aren’t going to want to hear. Not even a little.
Things. Don’t. Make. Sense.
Well, not outside of just accepting that people can be selfish and shitty and things don’t always make sense. Sorry. That’s just the reality. We live in a world where closure is something we push like a magic drug or pill. You just need closure. I just need closure. We just need closure. But sometimes closure comes in the form of slamming a door really fucking hard so that someone can’t bust through. Closure is sometimes about blocking someone from your cell and banishing them on social media and deleting their emails. Closure is about disconnecting from old colleagues and living your best life in a new job sans comparison. Closure is being able to take enough time that you can tell a good story about your friend without caveating with anything at all. S/he was just someone you used to know. That part of you is over and so is your story. But, there’s a look back and aw, that’s nice.
Closure is often not clean or neat as we would wish it to be. Closure is a giant pile of shit and we are tasked with pulling it into tidy piles. You want the room to have some semblance of order? You better start folding like a maniac. No one is going to do it for you, that’s for sure.
Or, you can wait. You can. You can wait until the thing makes sense to you. You can try and have endless conversations. You can search for answers in books and on social media and in all the places where I guarantee you it doesn’t exist. You can circle the drain until the end of time and likely, no one is going to cut you off or stop you. You will gerbil wheel yourself until you are fucking dizzy and not a singular soul will catch you when you drunkenly stumble. This is not about anyone else giving you permission or a stamp of approval. This is not about other people making sense of everything for you. It’s the opposite of that. You have to decide that you are good, regardless. Your life does not hinge on everything falling into place. There will be mess and sometimes, we have to leave the junk behind and know that when we look back, the lump will look smaller but it will still be there, and that’s okay.
You might be at this very moment telling yourself that’s all fine and well for others but there is no way that you could ever accomplish such a feat. No way. I’m here to tell you that unless someone is a flat-out sociopath, we all struggle with this very human process. All of us. I mean, people cope in different ways but there is a still struggle bus moment for everyone. Some people jump into new relationships to distract them. Some people seek companionship from friends (aka the I can’t be alone syndrome). Some people drown or feed their sorrows with booze or drugs or food. Any which way, they are still processing. Don’t be fooled. It isn’t easy for anyone. Start there.
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