Hi, I'm 24 years old and about two and a half months ago my girlfriend broke up with me. We'd been together for about a year and she had said to me multiple times that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. Needless to say, I thought we were going to be together for quite some time when she dropped the bomb on me. I was devastated, nauseous, just physically sick at not having her in my life. It felt like there was a gap in everything—socially, supportively, even literally, like in my bed or by my side on the couch. In my pain, I turned to watching some movies that were extremely relatable in my current predicament.
I watched (500) Days of Summer, which was completely relatable to my current situation. Summer obviously was a little different because she said up front she didn't want anything serious, but at the same time, Tom's devastation was very relatable and made me think about the amount of time it could take to get over something like this. He goes through a rollercoaster of emotions, first of which is concentrated on getting her back. That's all I thought about when it just ended, but the movie also helped me realized that this girl has made decisions. I don't think these decisions are on the can't-take-it-back level and I do think we could mend our relationship, but even so, maturity is a big part of being in a serious, committed relationship. I know I made mistakes and, given the chance, would've been very eager to fix them, just like Tom. But she did not fight for the relationship and in the end, it wasn't important to her. I think that's something Tom learns after months of languishing and being led on and there's no real time table for something like this, but one day, inexplicably, you will wake up and move on to something else. I'm not sure I'm at that stage yet, but I understand that it's coming and I'm trying to make my way there.
I also watched 50/50, which isn't really a romance film, but it does cover emotional devastation in a serious and heartfelt way, wheedling in comedy to try and lessen the blows. When Joseph Gordon-Levitt is blindsided by the cancer news, it felt really similar to my situation. Obviously he couldn't reason with the cancer, but I realized i couldn't reason with my ex either. She told me she had been unhappy the last few months, but if she just expressed these feelings to me in a serious conversation, I know we could've worked things out. She didn't though. My sister described her as a child, someone that would rather run away from any problems rather than talk and confront them. This related to the way Gordon-Levitt had to confront his situation and go at it head on. Of course there was fear, but he confronted it head on, and in the end, his courage helped him overcome the cancer.
Recently, I watched The Spectacular Now. It's a kind of John Hughes-esque film. It made me think about when we first met and how it was instantaneous, love at first sight. Made me think of all the times we'd laughed and smiled and just casually hung out, overwhelmingly happy just to be in each other's presence. But Sutter's inability to really commit to Aimee because of his unresolved personal issues reminded me of my ex, and how, although she is not a bad person, she is someone that is not ready for a serious commitment. She shouldn't have said all those things to me about wanting to marry me and picking out our wedding colors, but she's not a bad person. She's just got some intimacy issues.
I also watched a film called Beginners, which I'd seen before, but was probably the film I connected with the most post-breakup. It is about a very lonely man, dealing with the recent death of his father, who revealed he was gay after his wife died. The man then takes in the father's Jack Russell, also suffering from the father's loss, and strikes up a relationship with a successful actress. The most relatable thing about this was the depression he was suffering from. The dog speaks to him sometimes and I remember he tells the man, "tell her the darkness is about to drown us unless something drastic happens right now." It literally feels like that. It feels like she died and I have no way of contacting her, of seeing her again. Because she wants nothing to do with me now and I don't know why. But I guess that's what you have to do to move on: you have to steer yourself in a different direction and take some chances, forge a life without that person and leave them behind. It's depressing and awful, but at the same time, entirely necessary.
Bottom line: These are all incredible films and they all deal with love and loss and death in various ways that really helped me in my depression. I rambled a bit and wrote way more than i wanted to, but I really hope this post can help others suffering from loss of love.
Submitted January 01, 2018 at 12:14PM by rogueclone http://ift.tt/2qbue9s
