Sunshine After the Storm

The sun always rises; simply take heart.

Sunshine After the Storm

Loving someone, especially when it's so easy to do, can be the warmest feeling in the world—a feeling that overwhelms your heart and your soul until you feel like no one and no thing can bring you back down to the earth. Loving someone tests your ability to put someone else's heart above your own. Loving someone challenges you to pursue gentleness, humility, and the utmost level of patience. Loving someone tears down every wall you've built up around your heart, and allows you to freely express your every dream...usually sewing the one you love into every stitch of the dreams you've sewn together with your passion, your integrity, and your character. Loving someone changes you. Loving someone teaches you a lesson in life; sometimes many lessons are learned from loving someone so greatly. As you have read the last few sentences, you might've felt the blood flush trough your veins as a familiar (or maybe a not-so-familiar) name came to your mind. You probably understand what it's like to feel the pain of having your 'dream tapestry' that you stitched, to include and even embody the person you love, destroyed and ripped apart at every seam. You probably know what it's like to be left alone to grieve and mourn the departure of someone you love. You probably know what it's like to be left with a million unanswered questions and a constant screening of the film created by your innermost thoughts titled "why?" You most likely understand what it feels like to lay awake in the early hours of the morning as your pillow is soaked with tears of sheer abandonment and confusion, while your stomach aches from the rapid breaths that flex your abdomen as you attempt to leave your roommates undisturbed while you silently weep. You know exactly how badly it hurts to learn how to sleep alone all over again. You know how pathetic you feel after you stand in the shower, tears running down your face, trying to scrub of every inch of your body as you scream to an audience of yourself and God, "get him off of me"—knowing full-well he has touched and kissed every single inch of you. Finally, after you have endured the internal torture of having your heart broken by the one person you so passionately love more than anyone else in existence, you understand that they left...and they obliterated everything in their wake while doing so—including you.

Woah. Right?

I GET IT.

I HAVE BEEN THERE. I AM THERE.

A few months ago I turned 19, and life could not have been going any better. I had started college and was enjoying every minute of my newly-found freedom, all while prospering in an almost 3 year relationship with the man I loved and dreamed of spending the rest of my life with. We had plans, had looked at rings, and had even began to seriously discuss a timeline. A few weeks after my birthday, my man stood me up and broke up with me over a text. You read that exactly right...a text message, followed by an "I'm so sorry", as if those three words would calm the churning sea inside my heart and fill the pit that now embodied my stomach. I love(d) my man with every fiber of my being, more every single day. I could taste what it would be like to spend the rest of my life with my best friend and soul mate. We were so close, and I was so committed to choosing him.

I give you a few details of my story, not to overwhelm you with news you don't care about, but to comfort you as you experience your own uphill battle of heartache and endless feelings of abandonment. Your love for him or her was not in vain. Loving your person made you stronger...it made your heart bigger and taught you what you want, or maybe don't want, in a life-partner. Loving them taught you things about yourself and showed you things you had no idea you were capable of. The isolation and devastation you feel? You are not alone, and I promise you that.

You are not alone. You are not hurting alone.

Right now you may be doubting your worth. You may be spouting off thoughts in your head like, "I wasn't good enough...that's why he left," or "Maybe the few pounds I gained made him think I wasn't attractive anymore," or even "I can't live my life without him by my side". Right now you may be 3 days, 3 months, or even 3 years into this heartache and you feel like the world is crashing down around you, without mercy. Or, you might even feel like you have no freakin' idea how to life life without them. Again—I HEAR YOU.

Let me tell you something...

You are worth it, and you are valuable. You are wonderful and kind and radiant. Your dreams are YOUR dreams—don't let another person rip those away from you. You are YOU...you have your own hobbies, your own friends, your own schedule, and your own goals. Don't get the narrative mixed up. Your identity is not found in another person, or their opinion of you. You are loved, even if one person was silly enough to tap out. Give it time, live YOUR life, and let your heart heal. Remove them from every inch of your life, and do not look back. You are one in a million, and you should never settle for someone who thinks of you as any less than that...even for a millisecond.

Smile, and keep your head held high. Be YOU, unapologetically. Let this rattle the cage of your heart and bring some light into the darkest parts of your current pain:

There is ALWAYS sunshine after the storm.