How to move on after 1096 (failed) attempts?

And how to not let yourself turn bitter as a natural consequence?

1096 — the sum total of days in 3 years (including 1 extra from the leap year calculation) — and I figured the most hauntingly beautiful recipe to finally say “I am moving on”.

To let go of something that has carved a niche in your heart in the past is so much easier said than done. Especially with people proclaiming a specialty in the field and giving you a hundred doses of “should do” and “definitely shouldn’t”. But who would tell all those fools that being an audience is different from being an active participant? Because a participant isn’t rational, practical, and intelligent; he/she is warm, invested, and struggling.

So, what happened in these 1096 days? I tried every single day, waking up with strength and vigor, and lost all by the end of the night. I decided and made plans to find the best possible way and implement it, and screwed them bit by bit. I called myself destructive and hopeless but ended up finding love for myself in the corner of my heart again.

Mind you, the process wasn’t smooth, for it took away some of the most important moments of my life. Trade-off? I was able to battle my inner demons and let go of something extremely precious to me. And what happens when you can do something like that? You realize now that you have dealt with this, then you will also muster the courage to deal with anything else that life has to throw at you later in life.

I have tried to break down the process in 3 simple stages.

Stage 1. Denial: This is the worst phase to be in because you’ll figure something is off but the attachment is so sacred to you that you’ll barely say it out loud to yourself. Knowing it wouldn’t be lasting long, you will be ready to tread in the last shred of your dignity, hoping it would work out just fine, and go to bed, disappointed almost every third night. This is also the time when people around you would start telling you to cut off ties and let go — you’ll nod on the surface and throw it out the window.

Stage 2: Acceptance: After innumerable trials to fix it, you will realize there isn’t much to save. So one odd day, you’ll end up getting tired of your bullshit. This doesn’t happen in a day or some weeks. Takes gallops of months and till then, your suffering becomes the habit and a cursed experience. Spewing venom and love wrapped in confusion, you try to make amends and fail miserably. “But I didn't imagine my life without this.” And now you do. Just this one odd day, you know you have tried everything humanly possible and maybe, (you say it out loud for the first time) it’s time to let go. This phase gives you a quick glimpse of the intensity of your emotions. Scared of how much you feel, you take the first step of acknowledging that sometimes, miracles just touch you on the edge and you have to know when they are over and let them pass.

Stage 3: Closure: Testing various strategies that evoke a reaction, miserably finding yourself in situations you said you would never be in — you confront your destiny and luck, while also putting God on a stand, asking “why me”. To make peace with it, you decode every possible angle and situation, realizing its actually gone. What you had vs what you have is different. It might be the same face, voice and body, but the soul is different. Things you thought will never happen to you with this person — well, that turned out no different. Incident after incident, it multiplies. You give chances. You take some. Only to realize it can’t. You can’t. And you first say goodbye.

Goodbye doesn’t come with hatred. It comes in peace because you know you did it all. It comes in pain because you still lost it all. You abuse first, cry second, apologize third and learn the art of saying thank you with numb eyes, hoping its the last time.

Walking away isn’t just a process. It’s a life jacket lesson that life teaches by intentionally throwing us in the water when we don’t know how to swim and asks us to learn to deal with the heavy flow of water and come back on the surface by just experience.

And just in case nobody has told you yet — “No, you couldn’t have done anything else to make this better.”

Some tips and tricks that I learned while surviving this storm, that might help you break what’s stopping you:

1. Take all your chances and say every single thing that comes in your hear: It’s difficult to live with “what if” than “I knew it wouldn’t have worked”.
2. Care. Love. Respect. Until you no longer can.
3. Make a note of why you are thankful vs the ugly things you underwent: The former will help you not keep grudges, and the latter will teach your heart how and when to create boundaries.
4. Don’t stick to guilt, no matter what people say: It’s okay to say tonight that you won’t go back to this, and flip tomorrow to say you are back with it. There’s no guilt and absolutely no shame. You are just doing what you are feeling and that’s okay. You will either be able to save it or move on eventually, but at your own bloody pace.
5. Try endlessly, to an extent where you know you are doing extra but who will it hurt, really? You? Sure, but it helps you in the long run.
6. Let those tears flow: Cry. And cry when you feel like you just can’t do it now. Let those tears flow, and sit in a corner until you start feeling disgusted to be a part of that corner anymore.
7. Have bad days: Live those utterly sad days with mood swings dependent on texts and calls and conversations, until the count hits your limit and you decide to open your eyes to the reality.
8. Write. Dance. Sing. Hear. Walk. Just move your hands, legs, and body so the loss and vacuum of what you are going through encourages your inner strength to fill the world with all this extra love you have.
9. Make a mental checklist of all the things you wouldn’t do to someone, now that you are going through them on your own. Wait, you already do that, right?
10. Pray to God to give you the strength to get through this, because you can and you will. And when that day comes, you will still think about the past with teary eyes. But hey, this time, you will also have a smile.

I did this in 1096 attempts. Failed. And then succeeded.

See you on the other side.