Some people walk away from love and easily rebound…. not me! I fall apart and feel like my life has ended. Why is love so hard? We meet someone who becomes our world and then everything falls apart. The dreams and hopes of a future are gone leaving only memories of what seemed so perfect. We get our hearts shattered into a million pieces and we become bitter. We swear we will never go through anything else like that again. Why take the chance?
Our last relationship ruined our entire perspective of what love is actually supposed to look like. We convince ourselves we won’t be ready to ever put ourselves through that kind of pain again, so instead we’ll just write off the idea of love completely. We’ll listen to every song recorded by Adelle and believe every word was written for us. We use a failed, unhappy relationship as an excuse to not be happy in a new one, and it is self-sabotaging at it’s finest.
After you’ve been hurt you relearn how to stand on your own two feet again. The biggest downfall of being so good at being on your own is you no longer desire affection from anybody else. You stop noticing when someone is making a genuine effort because you’ve adopted the habit of ignoring it all together. When you have the chance to make a 
connection, you’ve already staged every way it could go wrong before it even has a fighting chance. You hide behind your emotions with a mask that you’re not ready to take off yet. Honestly, you can’t imagine the idea of sharing your life with anyone, because you know how it ends. There’s no way you’ll allow yourself to be the dumbass who gets their heart broken again. You trick yourself into believing you’re the heartbreaker, that’s how you’ll avoid getting yours broken.
But, the truth is breaking someone else’s heart won’t protect yours from getting broken.
Having a broken heart does not mean that you are broken. There’s actually a certain strength that comes along with letting yourself be vulnerable after being hurt, and it’s beautiful in its own broken way.
If there’s one thing we all need to stop doing, it’s waiting around for someone else to show up and change our lives. Just be the person you’ve been waiting for. At the end of the day, you have two choices in love… one is to accept someone just as they are and the other is to walk away.
Why is it when you find love again… you keep comparing it the one that broke your heart last time?
It goes something like this…
You’re falling in love again. But you just can’t help but feel like you’re doing something wrong. Physically and (almost entirely) mentally you were ready. Then why do you find yourself slipping back into the realms of the life you once lived? The life you had with someone else. A life you once loved just as much as you love your new life. You left that life because it ended. 
It burned you and left you out to dry. So why can’t you stop thinking about it? You’ve found someone who is nothing like the last one. You made sure this time, you gave yourself to someone who supports and guides you. But there’s this burning itch in your mind that keeps reminding you of what you had before. It will lie to you and tell you it wasn’t so bad, that you even miss those times. It’s all the little things that you’ll remember in those times. The quiet mornings over breakfast. The late nights taking a taxi across town for ramen noodles in the rain. You’ll remember those times when you’re cuddled up with your new love and “that” song comes on from long ago. It will hit you like a hurricane and flood your mind with turmoil. Wait why am I even thinking of this right now? How could I do this to them? They don’t deserve the second guesses and what-ifs. It feels like you’ve cheated. It feels like your mind is unfaithful. But it’s not, you don’t want that anymore. You want your new life with your new love. So why is this happening? Relax, it’s human nature. You spent months, years, maybe even decades with that person. They were once a part of you and in one way or another, has defined who you are today. So yes, you will think of them at some point. They will pop up on your timeline. You will come across old pictures of you two and wonder where they are today. If you weren’t doing this at all, I would argue that would be an issue.
Remember, you need to deal with your past as you navigate your future. Use each of these times as a teachable moment. Maybe the memories you are making with your new love remind you of your old love, but they are better. Use these times to compare how you once felt and how now you are that much more sure of the choice you made. You are where you are with your new love because your last love gave you the opportunity to move on. So stop drowning yourself in sadness because your old love makes appearances in your thoughts. You’ve got to release the past and accept a love that is perfect for you now.
This is my journey… this is my life.
Rob Cantrell
Rob Cantrell 
Very timely, Rob. Of all this things I’ve lost or left, I’ve managed to keep a shred of hope. Wish me luck. And maybe I’ll call you for a pep talk if the memories become obtrusive.
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