Tag: the matchmaker’s list

I recently finished reading The Matchmaker’s List by Sonya Lalli and I was floored by how great this book felt. Aside from all the feels I got from this novel, I found myself really resonating with the position Raina found herself in. There are a couple of obvious differences, but I wanted to write about them.

The story itself reminded me a lot of my dating life before I met my husband. Raina goes through a difficult break up after only a year of dating. This was before everything else happens in the story. This is before she finds her own love. But when I read that and how much she still loved that person even after two years of not talking, I pretty much melted. It was like reading my own life story and the one boyfriend that crushed me time and time again.

Back when I was still in college, I met this boy through my sister’s boyfriend. He was a skateboarder and super cute and I totally crushed on him instantly. We started dating almost immediately after meeting being goofy and laughing the entire time. And we stayed together for two years.

And then one day he broke my heart.

It wasn’t an easy breakup. He was trying to finish up school. I thought I might have been a little too clingy, so to give him some space I stopped texting or calling to make plans. I wanted to give him the time to finish up his final projects; it was his final semester after all. After his last final, I texted him and told him how proud I was and asked if he wanted to get celebratory drinks with me.

He texted, “why?”

After that, he proceeded to tell me that he didn’t want to be in a relationship with me anymore. That was it. No other excuses. No other reasons.

I wasn’t sure if I did something wrong; if I was the reason why we weren’t together anymore. After that moment, I fell into a dark hole of despair. I punched a wall. I cried my eyes out every single night. I forced myself to smile while I went to work and did a full eight hours sitting at my desk and hearing complaints. He didn’t want to be with me anymore and that was it.

A few months later, he texted me out of the blue.

“I miss you,” it said.

A few months isn’t a lot of time to get over someone you thought to be your first love. So when that text came in saying that he missed me and he wanted to see me, of course I jumped on it.

I spent the next three years never going on another date with him or any other guy. I’d get drunken late-night texts saying he loved me and wanted to come over. I would pick him up in cabs out in the middle of nowhere because he was so drunk he vomited all over the front of his shirt. He cried because he was so messed up and he needed to go home; he needed me. I spent three years being someone else’s emotional pillar. And then one day I had enough.

It took me three years to realize that I was giving away the best years of my life to someone who didn’t care enough to take me out to dinner. I spent so much time being so frustrated with myself for loving someone who didn’t love me back. I spent more time with him alone than we did in our actual relationship.

And then one day, it just stopped. I looked up from the bottom of the dark pit and saw light at the top. I let him go. I let the years we were together go and from that moment on, I felt like I was finally done.

People don’t say this enough, but time fixes everything. Time heals all wounds. It can be a scrape on your knee or a tear in your heart, but somehow the human spirit fixes it and you find yourself stronger. I know I still have emotional scars from that experience that won’t ever fade, but I also learned a lot from it. The most important lesson I learned is to know your own worth, shine bright like a diamond, and someone who deserves you will find you.

 

You can read all my thoughts on the book on Goodreads.

You can find the book on Amazon.