College is a time of changes— new friends, new surroundings and new things to learn. One of the things that can come with college is new relationships. While certainly not everyone gets in a relationship in college, sometimes people do. When these relationships happen, sometimes they end. They may say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, to have loved and lost certainly feels worse. So what do you do when you’re trying to balance this change in personal life with all the things that are happening education-wise?
Don’t place blame
Sometimes, a relationship is toxic or someone cheats and there’s a clear person to blame in the situation. A lot of times, however, it’s not really one person’s fault.
If you’re the one who got broken up with, it’s easy to blame yourself, to question what would have happened if you did something differently. It’s easy to blame the other person- to get mad at them for breaking up with you, the way they handled it or for planning to do things together that you now never will. It’s tempting to agree with your friends when they call the other person a jerk because they hurt you.
If you’re the one who ended it, it’s hard too. You may feel guilty for hurting the other person. You may question your decision. But in the end, in the words of Taylor Swift, “people are people and sometimes it doesn’t work out.”
Let it out
Whether it’s talking to a friend or consulting a counselor, sometimes the best thing to do is just get all the emotions out. Write about it and laugh at the irony because you always joked you’d write an article about them. Blast sad songs and sing along. Blast happy songs and sing along.
Holding stuff in can get pretty unhealthy and it’s not really better for you in the long run. Find a way of expressing your emotions that works for you.
Accept both the good and the bad days in the healing process
There will be days that you hang out with your friends, that school has you super busy or that you’re at a concert and you’re dancing and you don’t think of them at all. Then there’ll be days that are bad and times when everything reminds you of them. You’ll see something at the store that they’d like and want to Snapchat it to them. Someone in class will say something and it reminds you of a joke that only they’d find funny and you want to text it to them. You’ll see a dog that looks like theirs and wish you could pet her again.
When you can’t do any of these things, that sinking feeling happens again and you realize how much you miss them. When someone goes from someone you talk to everyday to someone you don’t talk to at all, in an instant, it’s hard. You kind of just have to accept both types of days as they come. Cry it out on the bad days, but don’t be afraid to hold on to the happiness of the good.
Create goals
Sometimes, you’re sad and the last thing you really want to do is your school work; however, it’s honestly a really good distraction. Either way, you have things you have to do.
This is your time to work on yourself. Set goals for what you want to do. Maybe it’s get all As or to work out more. Maybe your goal to have a great presentation of your science experiment, to win an award for something you wrote or to end up with a leadership position in your favorite activity. No matter what it is, focus on that. In the hardest times, it’s something to strive for.
Give it time
Give it a lot of time. Learn from it and grow and make more mistakes. Figure out what you really want. You’re probably still trying. We all are sometimes. But time is supposed to heal. So eventually, it will.
One day, a day will come where you can wear that shirt without thinking that it was the one you were wearing when he took 20 minutes to put his arm around you for the first time. You’ll eat her favorite food and not think anything of it.
You’ll be able to look back fondly on all the happy memories but know you’re better off. Just give it time.
