Can I Just Be Over Him Now?

When will I be ‘over it’? In the rom-com ‘Ugh, I am so over him!’ mind-set. 

I don’t think I ever will be. Not totally.Like so many before me, I have [H]ealed from the abrupt end of this relationship. I am [E]mpowered to make my own decisions, guide my own ship for once, and I am ready to take on anything. When is that dang [R] going to show up? Perhaps my restoration is not about a total flip, maybe it’s not going to be like a wiped clean cell phone getting new software. Maybe it’s more like restoring an old car. It’s not going to be a total erase and start over. My restoration is going to be a let’s-work-with-what-we-got, clean it up, and go from there. You see, I often find myself thinking about Austin. Something triggers a thought and I need to act on it, I can’t just let it pass by. Today, that’s what happened. My roommate and I were talking about exes. She was asking for advice about a weird thing between her and her soon-to-be-ex-husband. This was her mutual friend interacting with the “mistress” on FB. The mistress was also a good friend of my roommate’s — they were on a sports team together. This is the girl that the ex cheated on her with and immediately was spotted with her too upon walking out on my roommate. She felt freshly violated by her current friend, not the ex-friend, all because she saw them commenting and interacting on Facebook. Hearing her talk made me think she really isn’t over this break-up, betrayal, etc... We talked it though and came to a few different ways to navigate through this. My advice to her made me think back to the Erin/Austin thing. I was in my bed, thinking through my advice and ‘calling out’ my roommate for not really being ‘over it.’ We talked it though and concluded she is ‘over’ the break-up, but not ‘over’ what he did. He lied to her for over three years! Her whole life felt like a lie. We can be over *someone*, over the ending of the relationship, over any romantic feelings towards this person, but are we ever completely over the *things* they did? I’m not sure if we are over that part. We lump all the types of ‘over it’ together. We end up ‘over’ some of it and just lying to ourselves that we are over the whole thing... I suppose I shouldn’t generalize here, but I have had these conversations with SO MANY women SO MANY times that I feel the we pronoun is valid. I am over Austin. I am over him. Fuck that guy. That’s me going from confident to angry. That’s how it goes in my head. I can break that down into the three parts from above. I am not in love him anymore. I do not love him. I am not romantically attracted to him anymore. He is gone forever. It’s me trying to convince and remind myself of those things. Then, I am angry. Realizing I am still not ‘over’ some parts of what he did to me is enough to get me riled up. Perhaps some of that baggage is still following me. 

I am not in love him anymore. I do not love him. I am not romantically attracted to him anymore. He is gone forever. 

I am not sure how to handle myself realizing this. It has been over a year since I left. OVER A YEAR! Come on, it’s time to be over it! I feel weak; I feel broken down. Then, I realize how silly this whole thing is. It’s OK to feel what I feel, it’s ok to still be processing, it’s ok to admit these things. There’s no timeline for healing. There’s plenty of time to live out my best life. This is where the car restoration metaphor comes back. I am the old car, he and our ‘relationship’ are the rust and wear on me. My experiences with him are just the left over gunk that hasn’t been completely cleaned up. But my new life, my education, my unwavering adventurous spirit, my current partner, and my family are all part of the hard work out. That work is making that old car run again. I am a work in progress. I probably will be that work-in-progress for longer than I expected, but since when do these projects ever get finished on time?Still, the WORK is being put in. Because life and relationships require actual effort. Again, something Austin never believed. ‘Relationships aren’t about work,’ he assured me over and over when i would challenge this view point. I still notice things that I do and say are influenced by things that were said and done to me. These things put me down, kept me down, and kept me mold-able so that he could make me into what he wanted. My [R] is still underway. I have processed much of the actual relationship being crap; I have restored my faith in relationships. I just have not been completely able to let go and forget about that things done to me. Still, I will press on. My life and my future are not for anyone else to negatively influence.