Emily's Adventures

I wish there was a word to describe the sinking feeling in your stomach you get when you see something on social media you wish you hadn’t. You’re scrolling, scrolling, and you find out your ex is in a relationship, or has moved on and you’re left, stunned and staring stupidly at the screen.

It hits you like the sharp cold you feel when someone puts an ice cube down the back of your shirt.

Everything is fine, until it isn’t.

You thought you were fine, until you weren’t.

I am the type to convince myself I am stable, always the first to move on. Distance is key, and I convince myself (naively) that out of sight truely is out of mind. I tell everyone I’m doing great. I “move on”, and then stop when I find that picture. I am a train stopped in the middle of the tracks on the way to being ‘truely over it’.

Then the self doubt and overzealous self-examining kicks in. Am I as strong as I say I am? Am I really okay? Will I ever really be over it?

I wonder about my methods of dealing with it ever really helped. I know now that pushing the feelings into the dark reccesses of your mind probably isn’t the best way to handle situations like this, but is more a reflex – of a mechanism to simply cope. I guess thats why it’s called ‘coping’ and not ‘healing’.

In our modern ago of social media, nothing is a secret. We pride ourselves on our ability to glean information about people from even the most sparse of online profiles. I say “we” because I know I’m not alone in these sentiments. They’re omnipresent in a world dominated by Tinder and Instagram.

I don’t have any real tips for this, but I wish I did. I also wish there was a way to skip the whole ‘feeling emotional for too long after’ thing, but I guess that’s life. I need to appriciate that there is beauty in being in touch with you. After all, your relationship with you is the most important relationship you’ll ever be in.

Note: Pictures are not mine, all credit goes to their rightful owners!