When is it "over"?

Recently a close friend of mine has been battling her own demons of getting over her ex-boy friend. Her story is long and drawn out. It involves an over involved mother and a boyfriend who is more than wiling to bend to that mother's will. It is tragic because he was a really nice guy and he really truly loved her.

But. In the end. He caved to his mother...and threw my friend away.

She deserved better than to be tossed away like a used tissue and it has been something that we have all held against him ever since.

The thing is though, she doesn't want it to be over, and I get the feeling he doesn't either. She went away to Europe days after he broke up with her and all of us felt that this was an excellent opportunity for her to make that clean break (out of sight, out of mind) that we all wish we can have at the end of a relationship, but she didn't want it.

She missed him and felt that there was room for recovery. And against all of our advice, she let him drive her to the airport for her European excursion. It ended up being harmless, but the return trip wasn't. I wanted to tell her that the reasons that they had broken up wouldn't go away. That his mother would always be there. That his willingness to be influenced by his mother would be there whether they had broken up or if she to back together with him.

But she holds to hope.

Unfortunately they also live 5 minutes walking...WALKING distance from each other......that's kinda...awkward.

So with her and him...things aren't really over as a relationship would be in any normal sense (but, as I've realized, there is no such thing as normal...ever).

Her break up has caused me to confront my own demons of my break up with my last love on more than one occasion. When I broke up with my last girlfriend it was a difficult decision. It was one filled with weakness and boredom and sorrow and transcendence and freedom and captivity. It was a rash decision made at a time when I wanted out and when she was quickly replaced with drinking and copious amounts of thesis work.

And for a time I was fine...not happy, but definitely fine.

And then my thesis was handed in. Over and done with. And I asked my self, "What did I do before my thesis?" And I realized, "O yeah, I had a girlfriend." And the hole in my heart, that had remained dormant for months, burned and burned and weighed me down and I truly realized what I had lost and it hurt. And for the next 6 weeks I hated my self a little bit every day for giving up on a relationship that had been so wonderful; hindsight being 20/20...of course ;-).

And it wasn't until the end...the last few days of school (though it wasn't even school at that point) that I realized that I had to tell her how much I missed her. That I realized that if I didn't tell her that I would never tell her how I felt and it would ache inside of me forever!

So I did.

And she felt the same way.

And for a few precious days before oblivion I had a moment of what was. And I had closure. On what was and what would never be again.

But that didn't make it any easier. And then I saw a movie and was able to disconnect from reality for a couple hours and got over her...mostly.

That was the start of June. I spent the next 3 months picking up the pieces and moving on.

When my friend and her boyfriend split, it brought all of my previous emotions back to the surface and I needed to remove my self and go home for a few days because I was in a difficult spot: on the one hand I wanted to tell her to have a clean break, but on the other hand I had had my own experience of a second chance and couldn't tell her to move on with a clean conscience.

She went to Europe and all was good...and then she came back and things were good...until they weren't.

She hung-out with him one night because she had to give him some stuff back and the next day she was a mess. We're talking about one of my strongest friends...and she was falling apart at the seems.

And she was right where I was months ago. Her problem was that she spent time with him and everything felt comfortable and familiar. Everything that gave me my despair for my last 6 weeks of school she was feeling now, and I felt helpless to stop her pain.

It is such an empty platitude to tell someone that "Time heals all wounds" or that "It will all feel better in time". However, it is the truth. But I want to tell her something more fulfilling than a platitude like that. And on the other hand I want to hypocritically dash all hopes of a reconciliation between her and her beau, regardless of my past experiences.

I am lost. Trapped between what I know to be the accepted truth and my personal experience.

in her case, I feel that she should ultimately find her space and use it to move on, because without it she will not move on. I started to move on the second I wasn't being confronted with my past every day I walked down the street. She doesn't have the luxury of a continent of separation and will have to rely on her own will to make it happen.

I think she is strong enough, but I also feel she will go through a lot of personal, emotional pain before she reaches that point of true transcendence of her past relationship and be able to move on. It took me a few months and 3,000 miles. She will have to do it with far fewer miles.

Here's to my friend!