525,600 Minutes
Photo by Michal Balog on Unsplash
“I’m not okay.”
I’ve heard these three words spoken from a handful of friends in the past few weeks, for a variety of reasons. They are three words I pay attention to. They were three words that I spoke not too long ago.
In August 2018, my own life was unraveling. For the second time in my life, the life I’d built with a man I saw myself marrying had left me heartbroken. For the second time, I grieved the loss of the future and family we’d planned together. And for the second time, I wondered how long it would be until the hurt and anger became indifference.
In the aftermath of each, I remember vividly waiting for time to pass. Desperately wanting to be on the other side of my pain. Wondering how long it would be until I felt like “me” again.
At that same time, my close friend was going through a breakup as well. We both thought we’d found the person we were going to spend the rest of our lives with, yet after parting ways with our significant others within a week of one another, we realized we’d both been wrong.
I remember telling them one day as we sat in the hurt together, “Let’s mark one year from now on our calendars. One year from when we both were both wondering how we were going to get through this.”
So, we did. From August of 2018 to August of 2019, I took steps forward and backward. I traveled to Morocco and felt myself slowly healing as I lost myself in another culture. I began to let go. I started dating again and had a short-lived romance with a man I adore to this day. I was set up with a friend of a friend from Germany and spent a holiday with him in Montreal. I signed up for Unreal Collective, a 12-week course for freelancers and set goals to bring Minus A Plus One to life. And when 365 days had passed from that moment I put “Where are [friend] and I now? Breakup update” in my Google calendar, I found myself making my final payments on a trip of a lifetime to cross off the biggest item on my bucket list – a trip to Antarctica.
It’s funny how nothing seemed to change when I was in the middle of it. The hurt seeped from one day to the next. The longing awaited me each night when I crawled into bed alone. From one moment to the next, I didn’t know how it looked to move forward.
But when I looked back over longer periods of time, and saw small moments where I slowly was letting go of my hurt. I saw each time I got up and did yoga, each morning I did meditation or went for a run, and every big and small thing I did to make me and my life healthier.
And I saw growth and healing that took time to realize. It wasn’t a clear linear line, but as the months passed, slowly my path inched forward.
No one told me how hard life was going to be. And while I wholeheartedly believe it is worth it, there are moments that are heartbreaking. Events that are devastating. Times that are terrifying. Things that don’t make sense. And so many examples of life being truly and utterly unfair.
As Minus A Plus One turns one year old, I’ve shared my experiences, my vulnerabilities, and my thoughts as both a single woman and another flawed human walking this Earth. And in reflecting on my 40+ blogs I’ve written in the past year, I think a theme I’ve discovered is the power of allowing time to pass.
Time can do amazing things. Sometimes a year makes all the difference. Other times more pages need to turn on the calendar before it can be seen. But few things heal better than time, and it’s amazing how bitter anger and deep hurt can eventually fade into indifference with enough of it. Growth is no different, and it’s not until I am still and quiet and allow myself time to process that I can see it in myself.
We have become a society of instant-gratification, but some things can’t come at the click of a button and be solved in a two-day delivery. When I first started Minus A Plus One, I dreamt of impacting millions of women around the world. Of creating something that can help and encourage the masses.
And maybe I’ll still get there.
We’ll see what the next year brings.