I was talking about old boyfriends with a friend once, and she asked me if one man I dated was a "rebound" relationship. It was then that I decided that I disliked the word "rebound." It sounded cheap, like this was just some rando that I was using to get over the previous boyfriend. The purpose of this post is to make us stop feeling guilty about rebounding (unless you're treating your rebound person like dirt, then by all means, wallow in shame).
Sometimes after a breakup, we're left with big, ex-shaped holes in our hearts. They're not the kind of holes that you dig in the dirt, though; they're through-and-through projectile wounds.
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| Just like this.* |
And this is frustrating and we feel guilty because, so often, those "next people" are wonderful and kind and far too patient with us. But they can't fill the hole.
But then something remarkable happens: somehow, they mend the hole. They put the bottom back in, so that it can be filled. I know that kind of sounds lame. I mean, we can't be sending these people greeting cards that say "Thanks for being the guy that helped me be ready for the next guy," but that's what they did, and it was necessary.
Sometimes we need people to make us feel something other than despair. To help ourselves feel that the last person wasn't the "be all, end all" of love and romance. To help us end a chapter or close a book. To mend us and put our bottoms back (there is no way to make this not sound weird). So we can again bound and rebound.
*The perfect .gif for this would have been from the Buffy episode "Primeval" where First-Slayer-infused-Willow/Xander/Giles-hybrid-Buffy punches Adam through the chest and rips out his uranium power source,** but alas, that .gif could not be found, so I had to make do with Spiderman.
**Laura, this isn't a typical scene on Buffy, should this description happen to turn you off from trying out the series. Season 4 was just weird.
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