How You Know It Is Time to Let Go of Your Ex

Letting go can be difficult. You know it’s time to let your ex go and allow yourself to live your life without looking back. This realization is the first step to the healing process. It can be difficult to accept that she is not coming back, especially if you are stubborn like myself and refuse to admit that you made a mistake. However, doing difficult things strengthens us to be able to deal with adversity in all aspects of our life. You know in your heart that there is no repairing or starting over, so why not allow yourself to begin living again right now?

Forgive yourself

One of the biggest difficulties I have faced in my own life is that I simply forget many of the things that I say and don’t even remember saying something hurtful in the first place. Maybe you blame yourself for the failed relationship, too. It’s perfectly normal to believe that we were the main issue, just as it’s also perfectly understandable to blame your ex for a breakup. In almost every case, there was fault on both sides. Learn to forgive yourself for the mistakes you made instead of spending hours each day replaying things in your mind and wondering what you could have done differently. It really doesn’t matter what went wrong because that part of your life is now over.

You have many more chapters to write in your life, so if you keep reading the last chapter over and over, your book will never continue and you find yourself in…

Should I try to be friends with my ex?

Having children with your ex is probably the only reason to remain friends with them. Maybe down the road, you can try to have a friendship. Since you are wondering if it is time to let of them, then being friends with them will not help you let go at all. You will only have unnecessary contact with them and relive past pain again and again as you will invariably ask for another chance or sleep together. All this does is move you back to the chapter that you just finished. Focus on your other friends or making new ones. Better yet — become your own best friend and do the things that you enjoy doing the most.

Creature comfort with an ex is only a temporary fix

Treat it like a Band-aid

Don’t bother trying to slowly release the grip that your past has on you. Rip that Band-aid off right now and start living for yourself again. It’s better to have a quick sharp pain than living the agony over an extended period of time, right? Each day you spend dwelling on your ex is one more day you have wasted. I have been as guilty of this as anyone. I used to take pride in the fact that my Facebook was full of exes and that I was able to be mature and cordial with them. However, once I realized how much time I spent talking to them, I knew it was time to rip those Band-aids off of my body. It has definitely created a feeling of emptiness in my life (and a very quiet inbox), but now I am free to meet someone new who will give me the time and attention that the exes would not. It’s all about allowing yourself to move on with your life and not looking back.

How do you usually cope with a breakup?

• Move on cold turkey with no calls, texts, or contact whatsoever
• Try to stay friends as best as you can
• Be distant but keep in contact somewhat just in case you decide to try again down the road
• Quickly find someone else to distract yourself from the pain

Don’t Romanticize the Past

One of the biggest pitfalls we have after a breakup is romanticizing the past. We remember all of those wonderful things our ex did for us and how great it felt to spend time with them. Keep in mind that your relationship is now over and everything was not always so great after all. We have all heard the cliche that “Love is Stronger than Hate”. That is possibly true and I am not telling you to hate your ex at all. However, take a moment to write down all of the reasons that your relationship failed. Don’t make excuses for either of you. Be honest and focus only on the negative aspects of being in your relationship. Read those to yourself anytime you feel the need to text your ex or find a tear building up in your eye. Focus on the reasons why it is over instead of how great it used to be.

What If I Never Find Anyone Like Them Again?

I am sure that most of us have asked this question at least once in our lives. When you think about it, the answer should bring a smile to your face and maybe even a chuckle. Your relationship ended, remember? You don’t want someone like them anyway. Demand someone BETTER. A close friend of mine once told me to “Know your own value, then add tax !”. I remember those words every single time that I am feeling sorry for myself and wondering what is wrong with me.

Final Words

The wisest thing I have learned after 30 years of dating is that the best time to let go of your ex is right at this moment. Not tomorrow, not after an apology text, and not after some long goodbye message on Facebook. Let go right now.

 

Thank you for reading my blog. Please read, like, comment, and most of all follow Phicklephilly. I publish every day.

You can check out my books here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=charles+wiedenmann&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Hunt’s Pier – Epilogue

Philadelphia, PA – 2021

The reason I’ve struggled with writing this story is that it can’t really be written. It has to be felt. To be lived.  It was just a summer job on the boardwalk in wildwood. But it was something else. We did the same job over and over every night. It was us on the ride, and the people lined up and boarded the ride and we sent them up. That’s it. Over and over again. A sea of faces. Thousands of happy smiling faces night after night. Non-stop. We keep loading them in and they keep coming back for more. They’re on vacation. We’re there to serve them entertainment. Welcome to the show, I’m Chaz and I’ll be your host. It’s a circus. A carnival. A place where the freaks run the rides and you enjoy the show.

But it’s more than that. We sell happiness. Joy. Excitement. Thrills. Anticipation. The list goes on and on. What job have you ever had in your life where you can deliver that to your clients every single day? That’s the only product we make and our customers can’t live without it.

I’ve never ever had a job like that again. I can name every job I’ve ever had and none of them will be any of the things I just mentioned. That’s why many of the people who work there never leave.

There are worse vocations in this world.

It’s as if we worked in a place that existed in another world. A sea of joy and happy faces. Of children giggling and laughing and having the time of their lives. we’re the hosts bringing them fond memories. The type of memories they carry with them forever. The old memories. The ancient senses developed in our species millions of years ago. 

The excitement in the air crackles around you with your every move along that boardwalk. The music that fills the air whether it’s something on the radio or the crashing symphony of the calliope from the merry-go-round. That merry-go-round that you only get to ride once in this world.

One time around. Maybe you catch the brass ring, maybe you don’t. Maybe you rode all the way home on that mighty steed or maybe you didn’t. Maybe you fell off the horse a few times but you had a good time doing it. You get one ride in this life and we all have to make it. Make yours count. Maybe not for yourself but for someone else in this life.

 

Can you smell it? Is that Curly fries, or is it the sweet fragrance of a fresh funnel cake? When you bite that soft pretzel and the mustard drips on your polo shirt, and your wife pulls out a tissue to clean you up. She and the kids are so happy you’ve got a job where they can take a vacation for a week at the seashore. To play with the kids on the beach and swim in the sea, and see things you never imagined come to life. The stroll on that boardwalk, where you stuff your head with delicious pizza from Sam’s or Mack’s. 

I’m here to help. I will facilitate your joy, sir. We all will. And we’ll deliver you a show you won’t soon forget every night. That game you played. That teddy bear you won. We’re here to deliver.

But all the while we’re loving our very existence. Really living. The sun shines above our young heads. Our skin browns in the sun and our hair turns a lovely flaxen color. We feel it too. You’re here for a week or two. But we’re here every day. We get to live this life for two months every summer.

And when the shadows grow long in the autumn twilight, you’ll remember us. Because we’ll always be with you in your memories. A place that can’t be seen or touched, but you can feel it. You can smell and taste the memory. That first bite from your favorite burger spot. That first kiss of that person you just met on the beach today or this very boardwalk. The possibilities that can happen. It’s all yours. But only for a week. I get to do this every day.

It’s my life.

For now.

But one day I will join you in your world. But, we’ll all be able to look inward and feel that bit of magic in our hearts that came to life when we were young. That place that you loved that you can never revisit. 

Only in your dreams and memories.

Other people have written about Wildwood. I’ve read what they’ve written and it’s been simple documentation of what the place was like. But not how it felt. That’s what I’ve tried to describe here.

You don’t know it if you didn’t really live it. My sisters and I really lived it.

Every summer in Wildwood was different. The weather was the same and some of the things stayed the same but that was the beautiful constant.

It was always Summer there. Eternal. I only felt its dark side when I spent my first winter there. That was when the spell was broken. But only for a while. Every summer we spent there we changed. Because we were growing up. It’s not like now when another year goes by and you’re feeling the same as last year. We were growing. We were growing up. From little children to teenagers to adults. You spent your winters in Philly and went to school in the cold and waited for the bus. But in the summer you returned to a magical paradise with days filled with sunshine and joy. Only joy. You can never get that back. Those formative years are fleeting, and once they’re gone… they’re gone forever. 

I finished writing this series after a long time. I covered everything but I knew something was missing. I scheduled it and put the finishing touches on my work because it was done. I would only return to it in a month to do final edits.

But one night I was sitting in my room watching my show, and it kept gnawing at me. Something was missing from the long series. That’s when I stopped watching TV and opened a new doc and started pounding out these words. This may not even be enough. But maybe it’ll be enough for now.

The carnival. The amusement park. The sweet sea air as it blows in warm from the beach onto the crowd as they laugh and sing through the night.

The more I wrote the more I realized it’s almost something that can’t be written about. It can’t be documented. It’s a feeling. You can write what you saw and what you did, but it’s not the same.

You have to remember the feeling. 

A dear friend once told me, “It’s not what you said or what you did. It’s how you made them feel.” 

Thanks to everyone that follows my blog and also to everybody who dug it from Facebook and Instagram. I reconnected with some old friends from these posts, so it was totally worth it.

A book about my youth in Wildwood entitled, Down the Shore will publish in 2023.

Thank you for reading my blog. Please read, like, comment, and most of all follow Phicklephilly. I publish every day.

You can check out my books here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=charles+wiedenmann&ref=nb_sb_noss_1