I've had a thought I've been pondering for the past couple days. I think I've got something here. Wait, let me back up and explain.
Tuesday, a classmate treated me to lunch as a thank-you for help I've been giving her with schoolwork. We also spent the time chatting (as girls are sometimes wont to do when out and about together), and the topic of past relationships came up. I told her about Tom, how long we were together, what ended up happening, and so on.
Wait, before I go further, let me briefly recap that whole deal. Tom and I were together for a long time. Nine years, to be exact. We met online, fell for one another, he visited me several times, and we were moving toward a committment. We were talking wedding plans (I had a dress and a ring), and we had an apartment picked out that we would be sharing. We'd even put a deposit together for the place. Then, just before he was set to move here, something on his end happened, though what might have triggered it I can only guess. In short, I was blown off for a month, then received a letter in the mail that ended things officially. That...took a while to get past even slightly. Even now, I doubt I can fully explain what that was like to go through.
So you're likely wondering 'Rough luck, Andrea. But what's that got to do with things now? That was two years ago." Well, in talking with my classmate about Tom, I felt myself getting emotional. Not overly so, mind you, but I definitely felt my eyes tear up and my throat tighten. That hadn't happened in a long time. I'm not sure what might have triggered it, though this being the time of year when all this went down back in '09 certainly might have played a part.
I was thinking on it today as I came home from class, and I think I have a better idea of what I feel. Even this much time later, I still deal with how abandoned I felt when Tom blew me off; and by extension, the grief I felt when he broke things off. I have to wonder if being in a (still somewhat) new area triggers some of that feeling, since I'm having to get my bearings in places that are totally unfamiliar to me. (As a reference point, my first time seeing the L.A. skyline for myself ever? Last July, when I first traveled to visit Justin. I come from a very sheltered background, I'm afraid.) Psychologically, these same feelings have come up in the past, but I hadn't felt them in a long time, so I thought they were long since dealt with. Apparently, my psyche is smarter than I am. It seems it was trying to protect me from being even more fragile than I already was by burying those feelings until I could better deal with them. Now that things on my end are evening out somewhat, they've been re-emerging, and I think they need to be dealt with.
That's the easy part, identifying that they need to be dealt with. The hard part is dealing with them. Stupid things show up at the worst times, and they're a real nuisance. They make me seem weak, like I can't stand on my own. I feel like I can, but then I start worrying about being alone, start remembering what it was like to be left in the dark for that month, what it was like to get that letter with no other closure offered...and I don't really know. I've never been allowed or encouraged to work through grief. It's always 'stay strong' or 'stop crying', never acknowledging what I really feel. Pain, weakness, grief, tears...at best they were merely discouraged. At worst, they were mocked. Any of those emotions had to be 'shown' when I was alone.
I guess a good start is acknowledging that a) these feelings are still around, and b) that they need to be dealt with. From here? I have no bloody clue what to do. I won't give up looking for a way to work through them, however.
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