Hi Anita,

I’m just now seeing your response. It’s profound and so accurate – from longing for love in a space lacking it to carrying around old emotional baggage.

I’ve done a lot of contemplating in the past month, mostly because these feelings have stuck with me. And I realized that they continue to stick with me because I’m holding onto them, because I’m still longing for love from my space of loneliness. I wouldn’t know that I was lonely, but I know that holding on to feelings from so long ago and for so long points to that conclusion. I started to think about people I know who were stuck in the past, and I realized that they did that at times in their life that weren’t full of life or happiness. Looking back signals a lack of something in the present or a refusal to see and face the present. I guess my boredom and loneliness has turned me back.

Although I’m now conscious of what this all means, I am glad that I have taken the opportunity to look back and analyze who I was and who I am now, and the patterns of living that I have carried a long way. I now have better insight and tools to look at the situation again and see it for what it is, and maybe try to heal what was hurt so long ago. Despite all of this, I still come to a point where I wish that I had had those tools, or a positive mentor back then. I almost mourn for my teenage self who needed some help with learning how to deal with life in a positive way.

All in all, I’m grateful for the experience and very grateful for your helpful insight. I still feel pangs of regret and longing that seem uncontrollable (at night I tell myself to let it all go!), but it’s probably just because I’m indulging in the memories.

The brain and the body are so fascinating.

Thank you again!

Ditto, Matthew and jdkm. My heart still aches and over a year has passed. I fear the day that I may learn of my Ex’s new relationship.

Heart hugs to both of you. Give yourself and the pain lots of love and attention right now and remember that though we may be suffering, were also being given the opportunity to feel the rawness of emotion and the capacity of our hearts.