Thinking of a Rebound?

There are so many times I want to talk to Rene, that I want to hold him, touch his face, and kiss his lips. Every night I want to share my day and long to have him tell me about his as he cuddles me to sleep. Every time I walk Ollie I wish he was with us, and anytime something big happens I wish I could call him. In all of these moments I am confronted with how empty the space is that he once filled. I just sit with it. With the emptiness, the sadness, the energy, but I can see the allure of a replacement. This is where some would entertain the rebound. I have never really experienced that before, even when Rene and I would split up we were always still in each other's life. Always there for one another. Haha I would go hangout with him after bad dates, I can’t even believe some of the stuff we did… It took us a while to get it right but we always loved each other. So there was no need for someone to take his place. 

What I am about to share with you comes from a conversation I had with a friend about his situation. However, as he spoke I saw myself in his words, a realization of how empty I feel and how desperately I want my man back.  I can see this about the rebound...

Whether it was a breakup, a divorce, or this, loss is loss and the rebound is only a band-aid for who you are missing. I must heal the wound, on my own I must close the gash. If I find someone to do that for me, our relationship will forever be covered in blood, doomed from the beginning. I  need to take care of this, give myself space to heal. Then allow someone in that's cool with the scar, the life lessons learned. This will forever have changed my character. You don't live something like this and come through it as you were. Some of my new ways of being are awesome. On many levels I am far more awake to the ways of the world, I will love and live very differently. However some of my new ways are darker. Regardless, any person getting to know me will know a very different person.

Do what you need to do to get through what you are going through. That might be a rebound. I am only offering insight into the possibility that the foundation will be shaky. They will learn you as one way, a fragile version of yourself, and once you get strong there might be conflict. Or worse you will be tempted to stay ‘broken’ to keep the relationship. Since this relationship only masking the pain of the first, the loss of it will seem so much more intense.  They were the rescuer and when you no longer need to be rescued will you both be able to adapt?

I am a ghost of myself right now, anyone that really likes this version of me will most likely find the complete version of me too strong. If they are into me now, as I am, a little timid of life, shell shocked, and reeling from a great tragedy, will they be able to enjoy me once I am healed?   Possibly, but more likely there will be a struggle of roles as I begin to come back to life. No matter how amazing they are, our way of interacting will be off. Since they are to me, simply a fill in for the man I really want. Where do you go from there?

Don't confuse lust for love. Don't confuse ease of pain for pleasure. When we are hurting so deeply the ease of pain may feel like pleasure, so look closely. Don't confuse the relief offered from just anyone filing a painfully empty space, for ‘The one’. Don't take the next person that gives you attention just because being alone is hard. Allow yourself to be complete as you are.

I must sit with all the longing I have for Rene until that dissipates, until my life happens and I no longer feel the need to tell him about it all. If I find someone else to tell what I  want to tell Rene, I am not really in that relationship at all. Our way of being together will be a sad version of what I still wish I had with my man. I won't even be present to them, they will get the leftovers of the way Rene and I were. The hardest parts of him being gone,  I will transfer on to them.  Like a text when I wish I could tell him something. An invite over when I'm desperately missing him...Seems  so obviously toxic when I put it into words, but in life the pull to the quick fix is strong.  Here's the secret, you can't skip over this. It will catch up to you and if you're paying attention you'll see the pattern in your life, in your relationships. 

I think in the moment it can seem so much harder to go it alone. To let yourself be by yourself, to feel it all. However, in the long term this way offers the possibility of feeling whole, a chance at freedom. Stopping the constant cycle of person to person to person. Marriage to marriage, or rebound to rebound. At some point we must stop to let it all settle. So pause, take a break and let your body, soul, and mind regroup. Then and only then get back in the game, no crutches, and no bandages, just your scars…I hear they are sexy...

~with my love