Moving on is a concept that is easier said than done. It can sometimes take weeks, months, or several years for someone to move on, it depends on the time they need. The path one takes toward moving on is therapeutic, one reflects on ourselves, who we were, who we are, and who we want to be. During this pandemic, it is all but natural for us to self reflect and confront the past traumas that we previously never took time to resolve.
Instead of viewing the process as “moving on” it personally helps me to think of it as a process that will help me gain strength, the strength I had but previously lost, a powerful form of reclaiming my self-identity. A personal experience of gaining strength I went through during my quarantine was confronting my high school experiences that left me scarred with doubt, low self-confidence, insecurities, and pessimism. Those were aspects of myself that were not present when I entered high school but that I had gathered through my high school experience and ultimately left with.
I was about to enter my freshman year of college with those aspects that weren’t me, weren’t who I wanted to be, but that I had adopted and had resonated with myself through continuous everyday practice. Being in quarantine, distant from my friends, my classmates, my neighbors, the society outside my door, left me with the only person who would keep me company at all times throughout this difficult time, that is myself.
I am not ashamed to say I talk to her every day, some days more than others, and I began to ask her questions, why do you treat me like that, make me feel that way, call me those awful things, this time I was limited to few options to distract myself from her, so I confronted her and asked her to tell me why and she told me her story.
She started at the beginning only describing the important details, some of which made me cringe, cry, furious, laugh, and worrisome. Through her storytelling I felt like I went back and relived those moments with her again, I became a listener, a viewer, an observer of what took place. I provided my comfort to her at times, rolled my eyes at others, and wept alongside her. I did my best to cheer her up, pointing out the positive things that came out of those events and told her affirmations that made her smile. When her story came to a sudden halt that landed on me and where I was at the moment in my thoughts and place, she stopped reading her story giving no preview of what will come next and left it for me to tell.
I slowly but surely gathered what I had learned and before I bid her a farewell I told her that I was appreciative for her taking me along her journey, thanked her for what her story taught me, gave her a comforting hug along with affirmations, reminded her of what she went through and overcame, promised to treat her better, wished her the best, she smiled while nodding her head, held my hands, patted them, let go, stood tall and replied so here’s to new beginnings then led me out the door.