Surviving Past Relationships

Being single, it's easy to get caught up in the drama of other peoples' lives. In fact, when it seems you have no life at all, you can always get entangled in the lives of your second set of best friends, your favorite television characters.

As I was watching reruns of my favorite show, also known as my secret addiction, I began to relate that night's theme to my own life. The theme was past relationships. And in the art of Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn't help but wonder, once someone gets under your skin, can you ever scrub hard enough to rid yourself of them?

When you have shared your life with someone, they become an extension of you. At times, you can't speak without them at your side to finish your sentence. When you wake in the morning they are the first person you want to see. When you fall asleep at night they are the last person you want to see. They are as familiar to you as a warm reflection in the mirror.

And when they leave, a part of you leaves with them. You are left with an empty hole in your soul. In time, we fill that emptiness with new memories. If we are lucky, the new memories will flood out the old ones, like an overflowing pot boiling on the stove.

But are those memories really washed away? Or with a heavy heart, did they simply sink to the bottom, reserved there for days like these, when we need to feel their comfort.

Oh yes, painful but comforting. In many ways, I relate them to comfort food. Some days it's a pint of rocky road or an entire package of Oreos. Other days it's pondering painful memories of happy times gone awry. We know they are bad for our bodies and souls but every so often we can't resist them.

Why do we torture ourselves? Like the torture of facing the scale after a night of comfort binging. Like the torture of allowing our hearts to be broken over and over again by the same person. Do we thrive on pain? Or do we remember the bad times as a protection mechanism for future relationships?

He once told me that is isn't human nature to be with the same person for a lifetime. Perhaps in body, but as for spirit, no amount of scrubbing will ever make him go away.