Recovery and Moving On

Well, Single Ladies, we made it past President’s Day. How’d we do? Did you drink every time a family member asked you about your ex at Thanksgiving, get drunk and finally stand up and say, “You know what? You can all go f*ck yourselves.” Grabbed the bottle of wine off the table and later pass out in your childhood bed? Did you sit in one weekend in December, eating all the cookies you made for co-workers and cry through all the made for Hallmark holidays movies that were less about the holidays and more about finding love in time for Christmas dinner?  How many times did you check your phone New Year’s eve for a text from you-know-who?

And I’m not even gonna ask about last week.

Welcome to recovery. The longest and possibly least exciting stage of the break-up process. Because it is during this time things start to return to normal.

Your friends stop asking you if you are okay. They start saying his name again around you. They also start judging you if you spend entire days in your pajamas eating peanut butter from the jar and watching the Real Housewives of anywhere.

You will also start to notice you are okay when you hear your ex’s name. Your urge to ask if his new girlfriend’s boobs are bigger than yours is manageable and the thought of spending a Saturday night in alone doesn’t freak you out to the point you post a status update on Facebook looking to see if someone (anyone) wants to hang out.

As you progress, you'll find immediately upon meeting a new guy you don't ask yourself, "If so-and-so bumped into me when I was out with this guy, would he be jealous?" You're no longer making up excuses to not meet that friend of a friend. Or listing all the reasons why you don’t want to go out with the guy you met at happy hour the other night.

Then, just like that, one day you find yourself smiling at a memory of your ex.

And, a few weeks (or months or years) later, you hear something good has happened to him. Maybe he got married or promoted or had a child and you respond, “That’s great.” And you find you actually mean it.

Congratulations. You survived.