Understanding whether or not you are really missing someone who is still alive and breathes but not around you anymore is a tough job.
Realising if missing someone is somehow more than just missing is even tougher.
There are various degrees of 'missing'.
Some are feelings of absence, some others feelings of void.
1. You miss someone gone forever, someone who decided to cut you away from his/her life. You feel like a sense of despair that everyone says you need to fight back cause you know that person lives in your memory and never again in your life.
2. You miss someone that for some reason you don't see often, like a far distant lover or friend. This is a sweet kind of missing, because nowadays you can reach that person by phone or email or facebook or travel to see him/her.
3. You miss someone that has left your life after a break-up or a terrible fight. You know chances are that things will never be the same again and therefore you mix nostalgia for the past, absence in the present and a sense of void towards the future that you had planned and now is gone forever.
4. You miss someone you never truly had in your life. This can be due to a lack of possibilities to 'live' someone for lacking of time or courage.
5. You miss someone you have pushed away on purpose, for survival or because you did not know what else to do or you were scared you could hurt him/her.
- you keep on walking down the streets thinking 'oh, X would love this spot' or 'if only X were here, he/she would have felt the way I feel'.
- you bounce every time you read a name or the name of a city, you shiver every time you listen to that song, you attach meanings to various other songs
- you ache inside for every writer, singer, city, state, anything that she/he likes and crosses your path for a fraction of a moment in a supermarket, at the radio, at the airport.
- you remember, out of the blue, perfumes, facial expressions, laughing, words, projects, stupid details that you never had in mind before. Instead of dissolving with time, these seem fresher and fresher and haunt you in the most unsuitable times.
- you become melanchonic and sad all of a sudden even though there is no real reason and you are doing something completely different.
- you start missing things about that person that you used to dislike.
- you start conversations in your head with that person and feels like crying because she/he is not there to answer you for real.
- you feel a punch in the stomach every time you start wandering across past memories.
- you feel sick when you realise that the other person has a life on her/his own and you can be forgotten.
- you see reminders of that person or situations related to her/him wherever you go. A name, a face, a date, you basically can link everything to that person.
- You ache down deep your heart whenever you see a photo or a text or an email from that person of a time that is now gone.
- you feel like something is broken or damaged beyond repair within you and you feel unable to change the situation.
- Lack of courage to face your own responsibilities
- Love
- Awareness that you have lost something unique that you won't find elsewhere
- Guilt
- Fear that you are hiding your head in the sand
- Awareness that you are choosing superficiality on purpose without facing your true emotions.
Only one thing.
Courage...
...to face the past
...to apologise if needed
...to accept the present without that person and do something about the future
...to admit your responsibility
...to be true with yourself and your feelings
...to avoid easy ways
...to learn how to be alone for a while
...to risk what is simple and easily ready for you, to win the chance of having something more real
...and when missing is more than missing you need to find the courage to bring someone back, otherwise that missing will consume you.
Realising if missing someone is somehow more than just missing is even tougher.
There are various degrees of 'missing'.
Some are feelings of absence, some others feelings of void.
1. You miss someone gone forever, someone who decided to cut you away from his/her life. You feel like a sense of despair that everyone says you need to fight back cause you know that person lives in your memory and never again in your life.
2. You miss someone that for some reason you don't see often, like a far distant lover or friend. This is a sweet kind of missing, because nowadays you can reach that person by phone or email or facebook or travel to see him/her.
3. You miss someone that has left your life after a break-up or a terrible fight. You know chances are that things will never be the same again and therefore you mix nostalgia for the past, absence in the present and a sense of void towards the future that you had planned and now is gone forever.
4. You miss someone you never truly had in your life. This can be due to a lack of possibilities to 'live' someone for lacking of time or courage.
5. You miss someone you have pushed away on purpose, for survival or because you did not know what else to do or you were scared you could hurt him/her.
HOW TO DETECT WHEN MISSING IS MORE THAN JUST MISSING
- you keep on walking down the streets thinking 'oh, X would love this spot' or 'if only X were here, he/she would have felt the way I feel'.
- you bounce every time you read a name or the name of a city, you shiver every time you listen to that song, you attach meanings to various other songs
- you ache inside for every writer, singer, city, state, anything that she/he likes and crosses your path for a fraction of a moment in a supermarket, at the radio, at the airport.
- you remember, out of the blue, perfumes, facial expressions, laughing, words, projects, stupid details that you never had in mind before. Instead of dissolving with time, these seem fresher and fresher and haunt you in the most unsuitable times.
- you become melanchonic and sad all of a sudden even though there is no real reason and you are doing something completely different.
- you start missing things about that person that you used to dislike.
- you start conversations in your head with that person and feels like crying because she/he is not there to answer you for real.
- you feel a punch in the stomach every time you start wandering across past memories.
- you feel sick when you realise that the other person has a life on her/his own and you can be forgotten.
- you see reminders of that person or situations related to her/him wherever you go. A name, a face, a date, you basically can link everything to that person.
- You ache down deep your heart whenever you see a photo or a text or an email from that person of a time that is now gone.
- you feel like something is broken or damaged beyond repair within you and you feel unable to change the situation.
IF IT IS MORE THAN JUST MISSING, THEN WHAT IS IT?
- Lack of courage to face your own responsibilities
- Love
- Awareness that you have lost something unique that you won't find elsewhere
- Guilt
- Fear that you are hiding your head in the sand
- Awareness that you are choosing superficiality on purpose without facing your true emotions.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
Only one thing.
Courage...
...to face the past
...to apologise if needed
...to accept the present without that person and do something about the future
...to admit your responsibility
...to be true with yourself and your feelings
...to avoid easy ways
...to learn how to be alone for a while
...to risk what is simple and easily ready for you, to win the chance of having something more real
...to be able to understand that if life is short the only thing to do is to feel alive every second of your life...
...and when missing is more than missing you need to find the courage to bring someone back, otherwise that missing will consume you.
Comments
Do you think you need to have all the sympthoms all at once or just a few of them will do?
I find quite inspiring this line
'...to be able to to understand that if life is short the only thing to do is to feel alive every second of your life...'
usually people say that given that life is too short there is no reason to waste it in tears and pain, but just chasing pleasures and avoiding difficulties...
you here give a totally different perspective...live a life fully feeling each part of you each second...that's amazing :)
uhm...at some point I believe you have all the sympthoms, or more than one for sure all at once, or others that I haven't counted here!
Yes, I believe that being life short there is no point in letting it go in mediocrity...what's the point is living a low profile? Not get hurt? Why? For what? for not feeling alive? For dying slowly as neruda say?
DAMN those who think like that, those who believe they have a heart made of crystal always afraid to break it.
"Ma l'ansia?!"
You always seem to put into words what I can not, yet they have been almost word for word what's in my head (and Heart).
Missing has been/IS more than Missing.
This Lion needs a trip down the Yellow Brick Road to go see the Wizard... can he give me what I need?