Some injuries, like a splinter, heal quickly. Nearly slicing your finger off while making dinner takes a little longer. And some injuries go even deeper, take longer to recover from, or even leave a scar. 

About two years ago, I tripped in my yard and cut my foot open on a sharp tool that was lying around. It hurt so much at the time, and for a long while after. The other day I looked at my foot and was surprised to see that I still have a tiny scar from that injury. I hadn’t thought about that day in a long time, and when I did, the pain didn’t come back, just the memory. 

Recovery from the end of a relationship can be the same way. Some relationships were short lived or not that deep, and everyone happily agrees to move on with very little pain or regret. Some relationships get under our skin a little bit, and we keep returning to those what ifs or might-have-beens.  And of course, some relationships were long enough, complicated enough, or life altering enough that they might even leave a scar. 

It takes some space and time to be ready to address a breakup. Even if the end was your idea, there can be feelings of regret, sadness, loss, and even a worry that there’s something fundamentally wrong with you, that maybe you’re meant to be alone or that you are truly unlovable. 

If it wasn’t your idea, you can have all those other feelings as well as the confusion, abandonment, and hurt of being left alone. 

And if you have kids to think about? Forget it. Your pain, your heartache, your tears, all that has to be back burnered while you just get through the process of life. 

Somewhere along the way, though, some space opens up. Maybe enough time passes, or the kids get older, or you notice some aspect of your life that you’re just not content with anymore.

It’s time to move forward. Your relationship may have ended, but you are not your relationship. You’re a unique individual, with interests, quirks, patterns of behaviors, hobbies. It’s easy to get lost in a relationship, especially one that wasn’t that healthy. It might not be easy, but it could feel natural to give up on interests, hobbies, even people. 

If you’re busy raising children, it could feel even more natural that you have no time for yourself, or the time you do have for yourself you feel guilty about, or just waste away on doomscrolling, because you’re simply too tired to function. 

But in fact (brace yourself for an unpopular opinion) it is actually not that natural nor healthy to completely disappear in “service” of others. You quite literally, cannot pour from an empty cup, yet women try to do it every time. 

No wonder we end up feeling burnt out, over extended, and unloved. 

Again, not always popular but no less true: You must love yourself to truly be available for loving other people. If you cannot care about yourself - the ONE person you can always count on, then that is a lonely place to be, indeed. 

So here’s an invitation to rediscover yourself. It’s not starting over. It’s starting fresh. It’s giving yourself some space and time to recover from those wounds, to go gently with yourself. So that hurt that was once so painful becomes just a faint scar that you almost never think about.