Things I Learned From My Ex Boyfriend Getting Engaged

This weekend it happened. I got the dreaded Facebook notification: Your Ex is ENGAGED to Another Girl. I’d always feared this day. I predicted my mental state would be somewhere between Alanis Morissette’s “You Outta Know” and every Adele song from her album 21. But I surprised myself. Here are the things I learned from my ex boyfriend getting engaged.

1. Endings Can Bring Peace

I always think that the unknown is the worst. You can have a million what if’s running around in your head and can overanalyze everything until you drive yourself absolutely bonkers. When there’s a finality to something regardless of if it’s the outcome you wanted, it brings an odd sense of calm and peace. There’s nothing that can be done about it and it releases your mind and allows you to feel free and move forward.

2. We Are All Stronger Than We Give Ourselves Credit For

Whenever I’m fearful of anything I always think to myself “I couldn’t handle that.” But you know what, you can and you will. You know how people gain superhuman strength and can lift cars with adrenaline when they are in a life threatening situation? It’s the same thing emotionally. You CAN handle difficult events even if you don’t think you can. Someway, somehow you muster up all of the inner strength you need to go into survival mode. The worse part about fear is fear itself. I’m paraphrasing from a ton of famous quotes but it really is true.

3. Who Knows Where Life Will Take YOU

My ex’s engagement got me thinking about what my future holds. I’m still at the beginning stages of a potentially fruitful career that could take me anywhere and could meet anyone. I always say my favorite thing about life is that your life can be completely changed in 6 weeks. How exciting is that? Instead of being crushed I’m looking forward to whatever or whoever comes into my life. When you look at things with excitement instead of fear or bitterness it really enables you to see how wonderful your life can be.

While I still probably would have preferred to live in blissful denial about all of my exes, I can’t. And it doesn’t hurt that next to the new girl I look like Brooklyn Decker…so when in doubt an ego boost always helps too. Have YOU learned from your exes getting engaged or just moving on?

XO,

Wannabe

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