When someone doesn’t choose us, the “why” doesn’t matter.

We do a great deal of self-harm trying to find the answers that will help us understand their change of heart. We think we will feel better if we know. We think it will give us the closure necessary to move on.

We won’t feel better. It doesn’t give us closure. In fact, it can be helpful to tell ourselves that there is no “why” — at least, as far as we are concerned.

This may seem disempowering initially. If we know the why, we often feel we can do something about it to either get them back or to make sure we never again experience the crushing pain of loss. But there is nothing empowering about investigating the flaws of our own character for answers or in asking them to sit in judgment. …

I have quite the temper for a person who actively seeks peace, but I would argue that most of us who yearn for peace do so exactly because we haven’t always had the luxury of it. I feel like I clawed my way out of childhood and then spent my adulthood fighting for every single chance at happiness.

I just don’t want to fight anymore.

That’s a tough stance to take when my entire country is rending itself in two. …

I had this terrible habit in past relationships where I would make myself indispensable to my partner. I didn’t need my degree in Psychology or my training as a therapist to know that this habit was formed as a result of abandonment issues. If I made myself terribly useful to others, how could they ever leave me?

Yet, leave me they did.

Because of my history, I would often find myself in the position of trying to demonstrate or explain my usefulness. I didn’t exactly write out a list of my attributes, but I made them fairly obvious. …

Gratitude is usually not the word that comes to mind when a relationship ends — unless it is the bitter kind, filled with relief that I dodged a bullet. But true gratitude without any bitter feelings? It’s rare for me.

It’s what I’m experiencing now as I sit with my feelings for the two-year relationship that just ended. It is not the ending I would have wished for. It’s pretty safe to say that I had Happy Ever After in my eyes from the first time our eyes met over pizza. But Happy Ever After just isn’t to be.

Instead, I am left with the grief for what might have been and the very real feelings of loss and disappointment — but I also feel gratitude. For the first time in my life, I know that it is possible to have a healthy beginning, a healthy middle, and a healthy end — even if the end isn’t a forever love story. I didn’t know that before, and now I do. …

Can I love you a little longer
In the quiet of my mind
If I don’t stop to tell you
If I say instead I’m fine

Can I love all the parts you’ve hated
And all the ones that you can’t see
Can I love you in the quiet
Knowing you’ll never be loving me

Can I tell you when you can’t hear me
Can I say it in my sleep
Can I hide it in our conversations
Knowing it’s not mine to keep

Can I hold it a while longer
The way I’m sleeping in your shirt
Can I pretend just a moment more
So that I don’t feel this…

I have levels of disgust and disapproval for those who come door-to-door to share their beliefs. While I understand the zeal — I did grow up the daughter of a Southern Baptist minister — I find the idea of it to be offensive. To disturb other people in their homes, interrupt their dinners, and proceed with the assumption that whatever they believe is inferior to one’s own belief system is annoying and insulting in the extreme.

Then I read Untamed by Glennon Doyle, and I could easily see sharing it door-to-door with the fervor of the newly converted. I, of course, refrained from doing so, but I did take to all social media outlets, Goodreads, and Amazon to proclaim it as gospel. …

My thoughts right now are my worst enemy.

I know this because I am walking through a minefield of grief triggers. I will go through the day being okay until a stray thought catches me off-guard and sends me reeling into grief. One moment, I am taking positive steps toward my healing and focusing on what I want for my life and the next, I lose my breath, feel that familiar drop in my stomach, and find tears streaming down my face.

Because I’m focused on healthy grief rather than denial or avoidance, I’ve decided to become actively curious about the thoughts that send me plummeting into grief. It’s interesting that some make me feel sad or disappointed and others send me spiraling. …

The phone doesn’t ring, and no messages come through. Over the coming days, I’ll have to stop myself every time I reach for the phone to share every good or bad thing that happens in my day with the one person I want to tell the most.

This is the part of breakups we don’t always hear about — when we have to say goodbye to the person who was once our best friend and will soon become a stranger to us again. …