'Moving with the trouble': learning to adapt to your new life

Despite telling myself that this blog would not become my personal diary, there definitely has been some inclination toward that over the past few weeks. For the moment, I only have the capacity to want to talk about one thing and one thing only: my breakup. My dear friends must be heaven sent the way that they have entertained my ravings of lunacy and insanity recently, but I suppose that comes with the territory.

Here we are again, talking about break-ups. In some respect, this has almost become a self-help guide of discovery, except I am the only one doing the helping and being helped. Which, as it should go without saying, is entirely normal as nobody grieves the same. My process over the past month will be very different to my ex, which will be very different to the millions of other people going through a breakup on any random Sunday. Not only has this process been absolute dog shit (at this point i've used every word synonymous with devastating so nothing hits the same anymore), but it has also thrown up a load of questions that I would have preferred to have not thought about for a good few months or so. The most difficult one that I have been faced with recently is: how do you know when to move on?

I have never been the kind of person that can get over a break-up quickly. Some people are blessed with the ability to do so, but with me, no such luck. However, having been almost four years since I endured my previous break-up, it's safe to say that the way I have processed things has changed significantly since then. It's almost as though your twenties truly is for growth, or something like that. But this situation has made me sit with my thoughts in a way that no other scenario in my life has forced me to. For full transparency, the person who recently broke up with me had already 'ended things' once before a few months after we had first met. That scenario, the dreaded situationship ending, was a worse experience to endure than the two year relationship break-up that preceded it. Sometimes, things just don't make sense. However, in that particular case of things 'ending', I was absolutely distraught. Because of that, the way that I then dealt with the way I felt was less than healthy or ideal. Yet, fast-forward to well over three years later, I'm dealing with this break-up a damn sight better than I was following that 2 month grey-areaship. The way that I am choosing to move forward is by processing things in my own way and on my own terms, whereas previously it felt as though I was being ruled by every single negative emotion that my body could conjure.

My belief is that nobody ever truly wants to move on from a relationship with someone they loved deeply. I know that I certainly don't want to. Nor at the moment do I feel I need to. However, my outlook on what it means to 'move on' has shifted most notably in the past two weeks. Feminist scholar Donna Haraway coined the term 'staying with the trouble' in her book which held the same title. In this book, the idea of 'staying with the trouble' is related to a multispecies approach to living within what she calls the 'Chthulucene' (amazing book, well worth the read), however I liked the phrase so much and what it embodied that I almost have my own take on it, which has been spurred on by my breakup. That is, the title of this post, 'moving with the trouble'. The idea of 'moving with the trouble' is simple: nobody is ever truly in stasis within their life. In this instance, moving with the trouble would be allowing yourself to still be as impacted by a situation as you feel is necessary, but also not letting it rule your life. You are moving, not necessarily forwards but certainly not remaining stationary, and you are allowing the trouble to stay with you instead of you staying with it. I saw somebody the other day say that 'moving on' is a less than helpful way to view proceeding with your life following a break-up, and instead should be viewed as 'moving through'. This holds the same sentiment as 'moving with the trouble'. You eventually learn to let your experiences be integrated into who you are as a person, and it is entirely up to you how you decide to allow that to unfold. An old friend of mine once said 'only you have the power to let others dictate how you feel', and she was right. As hurt as you may be by a situation, however let down a person may make you feel, it is then up to you how you choose to move forwards, or move through those feelings.

Nestled in this idea is learning to adapt to your new environment, something that has proved very difficult for myself, but with which I am trying my utmost to make work. Rearranging the space so that it is now yours as opposed to ours, getting your mates over to help you decorate so that you can't see the marks on the wall from bike tyres, or days spent moving furniture into a home that should have been yours together, are all ways that show serious elements of growth. At the very least, it does not exhibit stasis. The hardest thing about adapting to being in a space on your own is knowing that this is a reality that has been forced upon you without your doing or consent. This came to a boiling point the other night for myself when I caught myself crying and shouting at my cat, because I had been talking to him and he had not realised. Presumably, this is because he is a cat, but in my mind the only logical explanation was that he wasn't reacting to me talking to him because he though I was talking to somebody else in the flat. Somebody who, of course, was not fucking there. Out of everything, weirdly enough having a meltdown at my cat, not even with him, was a real low moment. Needless to say he got many treats afterwards, but it just goes to prove that the smallest, most mundane of things can be a cause for ludicrous insanity.

With the concept of 'moving on', 'moving with', or 'moving through' comes the fact that, one day, you will see them or become aware of their existence in someone else's story. Historically, this has always been the most complex aspect of trying to move on. It's something that, as of yet, I have been categorically shit at trying to self-soothe in the area of, and most likely will remain that way for a hot minute. And, let's be real, it's because seeing the person you still feel a certain way about with another person, or knowing that they are moving on and you are choosing your process slightly more carefully, is absolutely shit. Nobody wants to see or experience that.

Having said this, I once again am met with the caveat of the fact that I am only one month into being single, and therefore have not even really began to scratch the surface of how I truly feel about the situation that I am in. I am certainly more well-equipped to deal with my emotions than I was 3 or 4 years ago, but this only means that I now have the capability to rationalise and know that there is an entire life waiting for me to go and live it. As much as I may have wanted that life to have looked a certain way, or have been with a certain person, sometimes the Universe does things that make no sense, until one day, they just do. This is not me saying that I think this has happened for a reason, because I know that reason is for his own personal growth in the short-term, but in the long-term I would hope that this would have been for my own betterment. Maybe that's a bit selfish, but who knows. I think you can be a little selfish when you're the one on the receiving end of a dumping. Just my opinion.

Whether you prefer to move on, move through, or move with, it never necessarily means that you are forgetting a period of your life entirely. Experiences with people are designed to be remembered, and so, as painful as it may be to begin with, you must learn to let them just be a part of your story; something that makes you who you are today. I will always love that stupid man, but so much of that love comes from the experiences that I was lucky enough to have with him. I now choose to look back on those times fondly and they are slowly becoming a part of who I am, not to represent a time that I am forced to forget.