Stages

I'm becoming talked out. Seriously. I am not really sure how many more ways I can say the same thing over and over again (often to the same people) or rewrite the same sort of thoughts (often in the same places). I'm stuck in a mental rut, which is unfortunate and tiring. Like a hamster on a wheel I'm going around and around. None of this is surprising, but a conversation yesterday made it very clear to me why this is the case and what I need to do about it. It's because I can't quite believe that there isn't a way for me to "fix things". I'm not very good at accepting situations the way that they are, especially hurtful and difficult situations. I want to make things better, for others and naturally, myself. So, not only am I very upset about breaking up with The Photographer but I'm also wearing myself out trying to find a way to get back together with him. I like to have a plan, you see, a process to follow. A direction to take. The problem solving one would be ideal except for the fact that there is currently no solution. So I go round and round. Time to try and get off the merry-go-round. The only way to do that is to break out of the cycle, part of which is accepting that now, and possibly forever, there is no solution.

Easier typed than done, of course.

I've had lots of conversations about heartbreak recently. A few people have compared it to grieving, which has certain similarities. Things are lost and there has been a break with the expected movement of the world. Something and someone that you loved is gone. The thing about grief, as I understand it, from my fairly limited experience, is that it's a process, etched in the common consensus as the reasonably disputed Kubler Ross model. Whilst this is a bit too pat and one-two-three to really reflect human experience - grief is essentially unique to each person and to each instance, there is one thing that seems to be key to surviving the whole thing. Acceptance.

Acceptance is hard. Acceptance, in this case, means stopping beating my head against a brick wall. It also means forgiving myself a little bit, that it wasn't my fault the relationship broke down and that I had worked as hard as I could to try and make it work. Sadly, this is one of those problems that cannot be resolved by just trying harder. I can type these things. It's going to take a little bit longer to really, really believe them. But I'm going to try.

For me, part of trying has been to break the communication black-out and get back in touch with him again. Restate the situation, check if anything has changed. It hadn't. And I didn't break down about it. I got upset, but I was also made strangely calm - repetition as a learning device is a bit primary school, but clearly my brain needs a bit of back-to-basics in order to really accept what has happened.