Dear heartbrokengurl:

Starting over implies there is the beginning of a relationship and the end: marriage, children and they lived happily-ever-after.

I claim not only isn’t this beginning-end the normal, but it never happens. Not even once in the whole wide world. Not even once. Can it be? All those books with “and they lived happily after”- and it NEVER happens?

Never, I says.

In two hours I will go to bed and sleep sometime later. In the morning, if I am alive, I will start over another day. One day, one night at a time. We have nothing but this moment, maybe the next, and we all start over and over and over and over again…

Focus on the moment, focus on the life you have, learn all you can, be curious, be engaged. Don’t use life as a means to an end that, I say, never happens.

anita

Hello

It’s been a month since the breakup. For now, please stop these unhelpful, hopeless thoughts. Your concerns on being older are real no doubt but comparing yourself to others will eventually push you into depression.

Here is the deal – yeah having babies after 35 gets harder. Even harder after 40. But there are modern fertility treatments available which are available for many working women who have decided to have children later. There is also adoption bdw which is frankly a really beautiful idea.

All you can do for now is to ensure that you are at a healthy body weight, are physically active, do proper strength training and eat right. There is no substitute for exercise especially.

The next thing would be to find your center outside boyfriend and baby. What is it in life you look forward to outside these two things? What gets you excited? What are your hobbies and passions?

After a few months, ask your friends to set you up when you are emotionally ready. Try online dating. It is perfectly normal to want a family but be willing to work on you as well. Read good books, do deep breathing, journal when you start feeling overwhelmed by misery and despair. These emotions will come on and off post the breakup but you gotta ride out this dragon.

Thats ironically the starting over.

For now, clean up your life-style and find a new activity to keep you engaged.

Never too late. Always a way forward.

Regards
Nina

Dear Heartbrokengurl,

First the most important thing: a very warm hug from the Netherlands. You are worth that.

I wanted to write you because I felt much like you do when I was 35. I was struggling with my work and relationships were not working out. I got depressed and was in a dark place.

Now will not follow a story of me finding a great job and the perfect partner. Life is not a movie.

But, life can be much richer and more interesting than a movie.

In the past five years, I have slowly begun to give my life new meaning. I have developed a passion for sports. I have made new friends in New places (in the Couchsurfing community, for example). I have lived some of my travel dreams. And I have worked abroad several times. Something I wanted to do but was so afraid of doing.

This all was not easy. I am now not a Zen-master fully in balance with life and the universe.

I have no idea where I will be in five years time, and whether it will be with someone.

I still have dark days sometimes.

And yet … These past five years?

They were the best in my life. I am proud of the things I have been able to do. I am grateful for the things my body, my soul and the world allowed me to do. And I am hopeful for the future and looking forward to it.

I do not know where your life will lead you, and where you will lead your life.

I do know that you may very well surprise yourself. There is strength, the ability to wonder and to empathize, to dream and to dare, in you.

I would not be surprised if, five years from now, your life has changed and developed in ways that will make you look back in wonder and smile.

Love from the Netherlands. I believe in you.

Harmen