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Business News/ Opinion / Blogs/  DANCING DIVORCEE: It’s okay, don’t trust yourself
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DANCING DIVORCEE: It’s okay, don’t trust yourself

No matter how much I get hurt, I will never get hurt as much as that first time

I have realised that I don’t need a guarantee that a love I find again will stay. Photo: ThinkStock (ThinkStock)Premium
I have realised that I don’t need a guarantee that a love I find again will stay. Photo: ThinkStock
(ThinkStock)

When the biggest decision I consciously took in my life (marrying the Ex) turned out to be the worst one I ever made, how do I trust myself again? Well, I don’t. Yes. And it really doesn’t matter.

I do not think there is a guarantee that a love I find again will stay. Nobody can give me that assurance including the man, the creator of that love. Over time, I have realised I don’t need it either.

Initially, I used to be paranoid about stepping into a relationship. What if I got hurt again? What if he did what the last one did? How could I believe another man after all that had happened?

These thoughts would have me in an emotional lock. On one hand I was lonely and wanted that special person in my life, on the other I was petrified of finding him, this brave man who would plug some of the loneliness that was spilling out. Round and round in circles. Desire for someone, fear of the same person.

Then it struck me. What’s this guarantee I am looking for? I could be walking down the road harmlessly, when suddenly, a passing car’s brakes may fail and losing control it would come accelerating towards me. Then, instead of being one with my love I would be one with the footpath.

Or the world could end and not only will my romantic needs perish but so will every single person capable of fulfilling them.

Or some calamity may befall me and I will be too busy fighting that to go on a date. Might as well go now, when things are going good.

After all, what’s the fear? He will leave? He may stop loving me? He will begin playing devious games with my heart? I told myself I had survived the biggest break-up of my entire life and I was fine. I knew how to pick myself and carry on. If it happened again I will get better in double quick time for now I have learnt the tools of healing a heart break, a house break, a life break.

In order to feel comfortable about finding the elusive one the second time, I just have to change the question I ask myself. I shouldn’t ask ‘Will this love last?’ but ‘If this love doesn’t last, will I survive?’. The answer to it is a resounding YES. Of course, it is not the most romantic way to approach a new relationship, but we divorce-veterans prefer to be a bit prepared for such casualties.

I know people who are scared of relationships, frightened to commit and shivering smug in their cocooned singleness. I don’t want to be that. I want to be out there and take on the world with the trusting confidence of the brave.

For no matter how much I get hurt, I will never get hurt as much as that first time. And that’s all the guarantee I need.

Dancing Divorcee is a weekly happy, sad, funny, obnoxious blog on the misadventure called divorce. It will appear every Thursday. Arathi Menon is a dancing divorcee who also blogs, writes, tweets and repairs brands.

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Published: 01 Aug 2013, 02:51 PM IST
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