Vulnerability

I’ve been struggling for the last few months with the feeling of vulnerability. Not wanting to do or say certain things so that I don’t have to feel like the “weak one”, even though me holding back doesn’t stop me from actually wanting to say or do those things. I’m still vulnerable on the inside, it just doesn’t show as much on the outside - who am I kidding, it still shows!

I was reading Hannah’s blog post about coping with a breakup, and I’ve never related to a post this much before. Not only did it remind me of how I felt after my breakup over the summer, but also how I still feel now, even though we’ve been back together since September.

Feeling so attached to one person is scary. It was scary when our relationship ended, as I felt like I’d lost a huge part of myself, but it’s still scary now. To think that I’m sharing my life with this one guy, who I can’t even be sure feels as strongly about me as I do him, just makes me worry that it could all shatter, just like it did last time. Maybe even more so.

Investing so many feelings and emotions into one person makes you vulnerable. It makes every tiny thing bigger than it actually is. If he doesn’t text you back, it makes you worry that he’s losing interest. If he doesn’t talk to you as much as you’d like, it makes you worry that he doesn’t care enough. If he doesn’t tell you how he feels enough, it makes you worry that it’s because he just doesn’t care about you at all.

All of these insignificant worries are all because of vulnerability. Opening your heart to someone can be a truly wonderful thing. It can make you happy beyond belief, to know that you have another half to make up your whole. To have someone that you care so much about that you’d drop the world for them, and know that they’d do the same.

But at the same time, my fear of being vulnerable has prevented me from saying what or doing what I really want to. Maybe it’s a fear of rejection, or a fear of showing how much I care… It’ll leave me exposed…

There’s nothing wrong with letting your guard down and showing people how you feel. You just need to break past that barrier of fear and weakness which unfortunately, is a lot easier said that done.

"Just Friends"?

Since my breakup in the middle of June, I’ve been through a whole sea of emotions, all of which have left me in a slight state of confusion. My relationship was a little different to others I know of, being that we started out as very good friends. In fact, I’d go as far as saying he was one of my best friends at uni before we started seeing each other. So when we broke up, I was left wondering the age-old question; can we ever go back to being “just friends”?

A few friends gave me examples of their past relationships, and how their “just friends” turned out to be friends with benefits, which of course, can only end in disaster. However, they were never friends first. I imagine it’d be hard for anyone to go from a relationship to friendship when it wasn’t built on friendship. They didn’t know what it was like to be friends in the first place.

I did a quick poll on Twitter last night, asking this very question, and I got mixed responses. Some said yes, some said no. One response in particular caught my eye though, which said it is possible to be friends, as long as the relationship isn’t spoken about.

I’m generally quite an emotional person, so when we broke up and agreed to be friends, I swarmed him with drunk “I miss you” messages, which of course, helped nothing at all! It got to the point where he stopped speaking to me completely because he was fed up of talking about feelings which, at the time, I hated him for, but now, I can understand. After all, if you’re trying to get over someone, the last thing you want is to be inundated with messages of how much they miss you.

After a series of other events - I shan’t bore you with the details – we started talking again (no mention of feelings or emotions, though), and we’re basically back to how we were before the relationship. I can talk to him about anything, we can still joke around and have the banter we had before, and I’m genuinely happy that things can go back to that stage.

However, I am a bit dubious. What if keeping him in my life in such a big way is stopping me from moving on? People have told me to cut him out of my life completely, but the thought of that makes me a little bit sick. Yes, it probably is the best thing to do, but I honestly can’t stand the thought of not having him there, as a friend.

Another thing worries me. As we’re in the same friendship group at uni, when we go out, we always go out as a big group. Even though it’d be completely out of character for him, what if I saw him kissing another girl in a club or something? Even though it wouldn’t be my place to tell him not to do those things, I don’t think my heart could take it if I saw him with another girl.

I still haven’t seen him in person since June, and I’m fully prepared for the inevitable awkwardness. But I actually believe that it is possible for us to go back to how we were. Yes, it’s going to be difficult, and I know that there’ll be times where I’ll wish it could be more, but I’m perfectly happy in the knowledge that for now, I have my friend back.

Get Over It

Get over it. That’s what they say, isn’t it. When a relationship, or even a friendship ends, whenever you express a moment of sadness, anger, or any emotion at all, the advice everybody gives you is to just “move on and get over it”. But it’s really not that simple.

My relationship ended almost 2 months ago. That’s a long time. And it still hurts to this day. Obviously I’ve gotten used to it now, so it’s not as bad as it was at first, but the pain is still there. And I have a feeling that’s not going to change anytime soon. It’s the same with a friendship ending. Most normal people don’t go from speaking or seeing this one person all the time, to being absolutely fine with no contact at all. It’s hard, and to me, that just shows how much you loved and cared for that person. It shows that they were an important part of your life.

But when friends or family tell you to just “move on”… I’m not gonna lie, that really just pisses me off. Do they really think I’m heartless enough to just not care about that person anymore? I’m quite an emotional person anyway, so if someone comes into my life and makes a big impact on it, I attach myself to them in a big way. I open up to them more than I would anyone else, and it makes me more vulnerable from it.

I recently started talking to my ex again, and even though I’m really glad we can still talk like we did before we were together, there’s still that part of me that wishes we could go back to a couple of months ago. Friends have told me that it’ll be harder to get over him if I keep talking to him like this, but really, I don’t think it’s gonna make much difference. It’s going to be hard regardless, at least now I don’t have that voice in the back of my head screaming that I wish he’d just talk to me.

My inspiration for this post was from Debi. She writes a “Thought of the Day” each Tuesday, and this week’s included a quote from Dr. Seuss.

 It got me thinking that yes, I am still gutted that our relationship didn’t work, but the reality is, it wouldn’t be good for either of us to go back to how we were. But at least I’ll always have the memories of the good times we had, and how when we were happy, we really were happy. And I’m content with the fact that we can at least still go back to being the good friends that we were before.

So if any of your friends or family is upset over losing someone close to them, don’t tell them to “get over it”. Support them, and show them that you’re there for them. Because with something like this, they just need to know that they have people who they can turn to.