By: Monica Verdugo
Aspirations, goals, and circumstances lead people to take different paths in their life. As people, we are in constant change and our life experiences define the route we will take. Sometimes, life’s challenges are out of our control, and one has to make sacrifices and let go of things (or people, that one would have never imagined to leave behind). Letting go of the man I shared my life with for 4 entire years, was tough. It still is.
He was the first man I was able to call my partner, my boyfriend. From being just classmates, to becoming travel partners. Life seems to be easy when you are with the person you would sacrifice everything for. But, there’s a point where you realize that there is more to life. A young mind has to grow, and I had to think about what I wanted for my future. Later on, issues arose between us and we changed. We aspired for different things, and we decided to take different paths. Of course, in a relationship it will be more difficult to one of the partners to cope with reality. In my situation, I was the one having a tough time dealing with it. I was younger, I had not experienced nothing like this. I had not been on my own for four years. I knew I had to continue with my college career; I had to think of my future and my goals. It was difficult to start everything on my own, and if one asked me if I learned something from this experience, I would certainly say that I learned about who I am.
I was young and I had a whole life ahead of me. I realized that I had stopped doing activities that I enjoyed because I decided to employ part of my daily life with my partner. Now, I had all the time to myself. I was going to be able to spend my spare time on doing things that would benefit myself and help me grow up as an individual. I discovered new passions, new qualities about myself that I had never acknowledged before. Who would have thought that I had an ease and a passion languages, or that I enjoyed hiking so much? I learned that not everything in life was about oneself or your loved ones. Volunteering with friends at a nursing home close to my house, and at an orphanage in Mexico entirely changed my ideas and perspectives about life. I would not have thought of employing my time doing this if I was with him. Throughout the next semester I realized that I was surrounded by amazing people that supported and loved me; that love comes in different ways from different people. Having people around me allowed me to deal with the situation a little better. However, I still missed having a companion that would be with me most of the times. I was not ready to and I did not want to find a partner. I thought about that ideas for a couple of weeks, and I finally decided to get a dog. I bought a Dachshund, and since then we became inseparable. Little by little, my different life experiences aided me to diminish the pain.
I learned that change is good, and sometimes better for oneself. Accepting reality and living it positively and to fullest is the best thing one can do. It was definitely one of the long and toughest phases to experience in my life. I have always been emotional, and dealing with my first heartbreak was absolutely difficult. I learned thousands of things after this experience; I started living life how it is, and to enjoy it even more. I discovered many things about life, people, and of course, myself.
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