To those we've loved before
Eva Sless
on 25 August 2022
7 comments
Everyone has an "ex" story. Whether good, bad, funny, or even rather ugly, we all have something about an ex that sticks with us for years after the relationship has disappeared.
These things, these memories and stories, even the unpleasant ones, have shaped us and created the person we are today. They've moulded us and determined the way we enter, experience, and live within our relationships. They've given us lessons on what we want. What we desire. And what we deserve.
I think, even with those disaster relationships you wish you'd never entered, there are lessons to be learnt and the opportunity for personal growth.
Over the years I have had many people come and go in my "love circles", and within those there are certain moments or situations that have stayed with me, taught me about me or life in general, and shaped the way I live and love today.
Not all of them are good, some of them were actually downright awful, but each of them has given me something, even if I didn't quite know it at the time, that has led me to where I am and, more importantly, who I am today.
The first real "love" I remember, as brief as it was, was in grade 2. I'll call him K. I don't remember why, but I remember I was crying. K came and sat next to me and held my hand and sang "you are my sunshine" to me because that was the song we were learning in class that week. He spent the whole day with me making sure I was happy and had a friend to play with, and he even invited me (the only girl) to his birthday party.
I don’t know what happened to K. My family moved interstate not long after that, but I remember the tenderness and selflessness of his actions and thinking how nice it was that someone had cared enough to make me feel good when they really had no reason to.
These days, in those moments in life where we need to put our own shit aside to help someone who needs it more, I sometimes think about K and his little voice singing "You Are My Sunshine", and I try to pay that moment forward.
Like I said at the start, not all of those memories and moments are good. In fact, for a rather long section of my young adult life, I was in a relationship that should never have gone beyond the one night stand it was meant to be, but that ended up taking over my world for almost five years. I won't go into details, but some of the things I learnt about myself in those five years were both positive and negative and changed the way I looked at life and love in a whole bunch of ways. I learnt that, when backed into a corner, I can be a very petty and vindictive person, who can hold a grudge like a white shirt holds beetroot. I learnt that I was willing to put up with someone who didn't like me very much, just so I could say I had a "someone". I learnt that, like a frog in boiling water, I can stay in a bad situation for a very long time before I snap myself out of it. And I learnt that, because of all that, I actually didn't like myself very much.
But I also learnt that once I snap out of it and take a look at it from another perspective, I can do incredible things and make incredible changes, and that's something I've taken with me ever since - including not taking quite as long to jump from the pot of boiling water as that first instance took.
Yes, those five years gave me some real pain, both physically and mentally, but if I take a look at the Eva before and the Eva who has come after, the difference is almost impossible to fathom, and I don't think I'd be able to say that without those moments and lessons that caused me so much pain.
"After Eva" created a world around her full of life, love, and friendships that are still strong today, almost 25 years later. She learnt to look at herself in the mirror and smile, not cringe. She learnt to love her brain and her sense of humour. She learnt that she deserved so much better. "After Eva" knew what she wanted and what she definitely didn't want she, went out and got it, in all aspects of her life both personal and professional.
There have been ups and downs of course, that's life innit? But with the strength of the love she surrounded herself with, as well as the knowledge and lessons from the past, she has not only survived, she has thrived.
Now please don't get me wrong, this is not one of those hollow negging-affirmations like you see on Facebook that say things like "No one Will Love You If You Don't Love Yourself First" or "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger" because I think that's bullshit.
Life would be excellent if we didn't have horrible people, experiences, and moments to deal with. I don't wish those things on anyone, but the sad fact is that life, and the people we meet on our journey through it, is not perfect. It's messy and cruel and full of stumbles, some that can actually break us. But because that's what it is, sometimes we have to put on our big girl pants and deal with it in all the messy and painful ways that might entail.
Because if we don't, we may never get up again... But if we do, if we take those lessons, those moments that lifted us up, or threw us to the ground, and take them with us to remind us of where we have been, who knows who we may become, or the people we may inspire along the way.
So thank you to all of those I've loved before. You've made me the woman I am today, and she's pretty bloody awesome if I do say so myself.
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