Self-reflection in the Light of Current Situations

I decided now was a good time to document things that I learned in my past relationship. I’m far enough away from it that I can look at it objectively, but it’s still close enough to remember well.

1. I’m terrified of being “that girl.”

I’m not high maintenance. I’m low key. But I was always scared to demand anything because I was afraid that I would be “that girl,” the high maintenance, clingy one. I’ve seen so many other relationships from the sideline that I’ve sort of invented an image of what I need to do to be a good girlfriend. Sometimes it’s bad like when I got a ride home from the airport with a stranger instead of telling him that he had to pick me up at the airport. But sometimes it’s good. It kept me from being “that girl” that stays in an unhealthy relationship just because she’s too scared to be on her own. I think I learned a good deal about telling which is which.

2. Why I lash out…

I have noticed a phenomenon in my reaction to events. I can just take things in stride without ever getting mad for a long time. Then, something totally tiny happens that is completely insignificant and I yell and get angry and then apologize for being a freak. I finally understand why this is. I think that I take things and take things and the reason I then freak out over something small is because it’s safe. I can get my anger out, I can get my feelings out without having to face the consequences of actually owning up to them. If I yell about something ridiculous, I can always just say, “I don’t know why I did that… I was just in a really bad mood for some reason.”

3. I don’t express myself

This is along the lines of the other two. I didn’t say anything about the problems we had until it was a make or break deal. I didn’t say anything about how he was treating me until I couldn’t live like that anymore. If I had said something sooner, before the issue had snowballed in my mind, then it would have been far easier to work things out.

4. I need to make decisions.

Partly from reading Tess and reading about her lack of decision making, I’ve realized that sometimes I just need to man up and make a choice. Sitting in indecision forever won’t get me anywhere. All I ever wanted to do was see if he still wanted to work things out. I always wanted to put off relationship decisions for as long as possible. And in the end, that just caused me a lot of undue stress.

5. I can have a break-up and not be bitter!

It was nice to discover this. I don’t hate him. I realized around Christmas Break that no matter what happened between us I would always care about him. And I still do. And I still believe I always will. I’m glad to be single, my quality of life went up a lot after we broke up, he hurt me a lot, but I’m not mad at him. Right now I’m at the point where I believe he has a good heart but is very immature and doesn’t know how to deal with life. I honestly hope he grows up and learns what he wants and ends up happy.

So yeah, a list of things that I learned because of this relationship/break-up. And my general opinion is that an experience is worth the pain it causes if you can take at least one lesson from it.