After you’ve spent so much time learning to love someone and you lose him, there’s no time frame you can put on that healing process.
People will try to tell you there is, though. Friends will gently wonder aloud to you why you’re not over someone yet when it’s been “so long,” and you don’t have an answer. Give it time, everyone always says, but who knows how long it really takes for a heart to stop loving someone?
The clock ticks, time passes and you feel pressure to just “get over it already.”
Even if you think you’re over him and tell yourself you are day after day, sometimes we’re just fooling ourselves. As much as we try to deny it, we’re not over him yet, and that’s okay.
There are signs that say, try as you might, you just aren’t over it. There are little details and behaviors that say to the world, “I still miss him.” Here they are:
1. You still think about him most days.
It’s not really even a conscious thing. You’ll be going about your day and wonder what he’s doing, if the found a new apartment yet since you know he is looking or if he ever read that thing you sent him.
Even if it’s not a concrete thought, his name is always floating around your brain; even if you don’t want it to be; even if you’ve told it to go away. Some part of you is always still thinking about him.
2. You’re interested in everyone and no one at the same time.
There are a lot of attractive people in the world, and suddenly, you’re noticing them all. You meet someone attractive and halfway interesting, and after five minutes you’ve already imagined your whole life together. You lost love, and so suddenly, your heart is trying to find it again, wherever it can.
At the same time, even though these people are exciting, they never seem to measure up to your past person. You compare everyone new to your ex, and no one is quite as wonderful. No life you can imagine with someone new is quite as magical as what you had before.
You lose interest when you realize it would be too different, and you’re not quite ready for different just yet.
3. Some days, you convince yourself that you’re 100 percent over it.
You think about how f*cked up the situation is, how he left you and think, “Wow, he is really an idiot. I’m so much better off.” You actively cling to this way of thinking.
You think about how it never would have worked out anyway. Life with him probably would have been miserable. He wasn’t part of your life plan. You’re happy for him and his new person; that’s how it’s supposed to be.
You can go days or maybe even weeks thinking like this, actively assuming you’re over it. But, you fail to realize that when you’re actually over it, you won’t need to convince yourself you are. You won’t need to keep thinking about it. In fact, you’ll barely even think about it at all.
4. You would still do anything for him.
You know you’re not together anymore but you still can’t help but be there for him if he ever needs you.
When he needs to talk, you answer the texts or pick up the calls right away, even if he doesn’t do the same for you. If he needs help with something, you exert all of your energy until you’ve found the solution he’s looking for. You can’t help it.
Hell, you’ve spent your free time researching apartments for him and sending him links. You don’t know how to not be there for him; it’s just second nature.
5. You find yourself forgetting it’s over.
Of course, you know it’s over. He’s moved on, and maybe he even has someone new, as painful as that is. Sometimes though, you forget.
You talk about it as if he’s still a part of you, and when something amazing happens to him, you swell with pride… and then you remember.
There are times when you’re dreaming, and in those dreams, you’re still together.
In those moments between dreaming and being awake, he’s yours again. When you finally wake up, you feel the pain. When you remember again, it’s the worst feeling there is.
6. When something exciting happens, he’s still the first person you want to tell.
You have many people you love in your life, of course, and therefore, many people who love to hear about your accomplishments.
When something specific happens though, like you get a promotion or finally finish writing that piece you were stuck on, you want to tell him more than anyone else.
He was there when you set out to achieve that goal, and he’s the one who would appreciate you reaching it more than anyone else.
7. The present is less appealing than the future or the past.
You’re stuck where you are, and you’re not into it. Your ex is not in your present, or at least not in the way you wish he were.
He is in your past of course, and you have no way of knowing if he’ll be in your future or not, but that’s still way more appealing than the present.
In the present, you don’t really have him at all. The future and the past are where you feel more comfortable letting your mind wander. The present makes you kind of sad.
8. You still have strong emotions about everything that happened.
Maybe it ended amicably, and maybe it didn’t. Either way, it still makes you emotional. Thinking about everything that happened might still makes you tear up. The feeling of being wronged, the anger, the hurt and the guilt are all easily brought back up.
All someone has to do is hint at what happened and bam, you’re on an emotional roller coaster all over again.
9. When someone describes his or her perfect mate, you still think of your ex.
You can’t help it. When the discussion comes up of what you’re looking for in a person, the person you imagine is essentially him.
When someone talks about what someone means to him or her, or someone he or she can’t imagine life without, you still think of your former person.
You haven’t found anyone else yet, so when the ideal person gets discussed, you can’t help but have him pop into your mind. No one else compares just yet.
As much as you try to convince yourself of otherwise, you’re not over it yet. There’s no time frame in which you have to be over someone; love has to run its course on its own.
As the people who care about us often do, your former person says you’ll find someone else, that you’re too wonderful not to. He says you have too much love to give, and you think maybe, you should believe him.
You’re not over him yet, but eventually, you will be, and if he believes you can be okay and even find new love, you try to believe it, too.
After all, he loved you. He would know.
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