Stop Exaggerating The Role You Had In Their Life
If you want to move on, stop exaggerating the role you had in their life.
Stop painting yourself in places you never stood. Stop chasing someone who will always outrun you. Stop fighting so hard for something that never really was at all. Stop loving an idea and give yourself a chance to let go.
It is a very human thing to crave connection and belonging. This longing is literally wired within our DNA. So when we find someone who gives us these things, who feels like home, who takes us for all that we are, it is only natural to hang on. After all, who would want to lose that?
But here is the tough question you need to consider: If the connection is really as strong as you think it is, then why aren’t things working out? Why is there so much pain?
The answer? You probably do not mean to them what they mean to you. If you did, you wouldn’t be feeling this way. You wouldn’t be asking yourself if they cared.
When you reach this place of unbalance in a relationship, the foundation cracks, and toxicity gets the chance to leak in and flood your judgment, your self-respect, and your self-worth. This is when the chase begins and when the fighting starts. This is when you begin to feel you aren’t enough and try and start becoming someone you think they could love back. This is when you begin to write yourself in their story as a leading character when you were merely a supporting role in a single chapter.
An alternative to this is to realize that their story was never yours to write. You do, however, have your own to tell.
Please stop living in What If and start breathing in What Is. Invest in those who are committed to you, who have proven they are by showing up for you time and time again.
Care for yourself and your life. Honor who you are, every single little piece. Find your people. Speak your truth and feel your hurt. Do everything you can to remind yourself that you were someone before them and that you will be someone after them, too.
Most importantly, acknowledge how much this particular person meant to you and then start to rewrite their role in your own life. Maybe they weren’t “The One” but a lesson. Maybe they weren’t a home but a stop along the way. Maybe they were simply someone who was meant to jolt you awake while you were sleepwalking your way through your life.
Take some time to catch your breath. Stop reaching out. Be less available. Let the idea of them go and watch that image walk away slowly, slowly, slowly into the horizon of your life until they become so small you can no longer see them.
And then start to move on yourself.
To be perfectly clear, this is not to say they don’t (or didn’t) care about you. This is not to say you did not have any place in their lives or do not have a spot now. This is not to say there was no connection and that what you felt wasn’t real. This is to say, though, that your role in their life was less impactful than you realized.
And that’s okay.
It’s okay that you didn’t mean to them what they meant to you.
When you finally allow yourself to step out of the shoes that were never yours to fill and into your own life, you will find it easier to walk away. You will find it is more than possible to move on.