Without a moment's hesitation, I said that I'd have to "push through, move on". The words weren't my own. I'd borrowed (stolen?) them from a guy who I worked with at the bar during the school year. Whenever anything bad happened, that was what he'd tell you to do. Hung over? Push through, move on. Get dumped? Push through, move on. Dog run away/fail an exam/have a big old zit? Push through, move on.
The shrink looked at me for a second, and then said that, actually, that's a pretty brilliant philosophy. Sometimes it isn't all sunshine and roses. You push through the bad bits, then you move on to the rest. And sometimes, even years after the fact, I'd find the voice inside my head telling me to push through and move on.
When my most recent drama llama went down, I needed a new motto. Push Through Move On didn't even pop into my head. Maybe it didn't fit. Luckily, a new philosophy arrived in my life just when I needed it most.
A word first about the lovely Jasmine. I've always thought that I've been blessed with amazing friends. Among the amazingest of those is Jasmine. Jas and I met when we were 8 years old. I'd just moved to a new street, and on my first day there I went out for a bike ride. The first girl I biked past took one look at me, ran inside and slammed the door. That was Jasmine. A couple hours later I went past again, and she came up to me and said sorry she'd gone, she was a bit shy...but she had a lot of people I should meet! Meet Nick, she told me. And meet Samantha. But don't meet ____* and _____*, they're mean!" Even back then, she was looking out for me.
During my time back in Canada following the breakup, I visited Jas and her fiance Dave. Jas told me about another friend of hers, a guy named Chris who was recovering from the disintegration of an 8 year long relationship. He was facing divorce, and she said he'd been pretty crushed by it all. I asked how he'd coped. She said that eventually, he'd turned to his soon-to-be ex wife and said "You have to leave now. I have shit to do."
And just like that, a new mantra. "I have shit to do."
I don't want to minimize how much this whole breakup dealie has sucked for me. I know I'm writing a rah rah positive blog, and that's because I am trying very hard to turn this into a positive. In fact, I'm trying to make it so that one day I look back and say that this whole crisis was the best thing that ever happened to me. But that doesn't mean that some days it doesn't still get to me.
And that's where shit to do comes in. I do have shit to do. I have novels to write and marathons to run and flats to find and jobs to apply for and friends to see and a Big Idea to work on. I have a lot of shit to do. And when sad or angry or unhappy memories of my ex, our breakup, all the stuff that went along with it sneak up, I can tell him that I have shit to do. And normally, that's enough to bring me back to the present and where I'm at today.
And where am I? I've come so far. 4 months ago, I'd stopped eating, to the point where some of my brokest friends were bringing me tempting foods in hopes I'd take a bite or 2. I was crying at work. I literally had no idea what to do. No idea where to live or where to work or what I wanted my life to be about. I was a mess.
And now, I eat loads. I'm slowly walking down the career path I want, with eyes to branching out into my own ventures once I have a solid income. I run and write and am figuring out exactly what I want from my life. Even better, I'm going after it. My progress might be slow, but it's solid. Everything that happens is something I've chosen, and something that makes me happy.
Shit to do...
Grey skies are gonna cheer up...
*Names left out to protect the mean
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