No Speak English

Have you ever caught yourself in the midst of doing something and suddenly stopping to realise that you don't know why you are doing it? An obvious example is when you walk into a room with a certain intention, and then you forget what it is, or if you are looking for something and you forget what? Well what about when you break up with someone and you only reminisce about the "good times" and want to get back with that person? When you are still in the process of “getting over that person” and suddenly you begin talking and fall for them all over again.

"Nostalgia." Such a dangerous term. My grandmother enters my mind when I think of this concept. She left war-torn Lebanon, with her 7 children and 1 suitcase, for that reason-the violence, the war and the hardship. Yet she insists that life there was GREAT!If it were as pleasant as she describes she would still be there would she not? Why would one pack their bags and travel thousands of kilometres to the "land down under," where the toilet flushed the other way and they drove on the "wrong" side of the road if she were happy and comfortable in Lebanon? If there was no hardship and suffering would she had even considered moving?

Now think about this concept in the context of relationships and break-ups. You are in a relationship, things don't work out and it ends. The first few weeks are difficult and simultaneously emancipating. Six months pass and you begin talking to your ex again. You discuss what you have been up to, what have you done or achieved since being apart. You might laugh together and begin to reminisce (there's that word again) and then you feel “funny.” You feel as though there are butterflies in your stomach. You develop "feelings" all over again and start thinking to yourself "why did we ever break up?" This is where you need to be strong. You broke up because "it" broke. Unfortunately no one changes. If the two of you broke up for a reason, chances are you would probably break up because of the same reason if you ever rekindled your relationship.

For your own sake do not be like my grandmother. Do not become nostalgic and start thinking only of the good times the two of you shared. The relationship broke down and you broke up-do you sense the repeated them here? If your relationship was going smoeethly you would still be in it! My grandmother sometimes forgets the circumstances under which she left Lebanon-she forgets the war, and having to lie about her children's age to keep them out of the army, she forgets the blood stained snow and the deafening sounds of bombs above her building every night. But you see, she does not know any better. To her that was home, she knew the language and the streets were familiar. She has come to the "new country' and it is here where she is a prisoner, where she barely leaves her house because she does not know where to go.

Don't be like her. Be smarter and stronger. Understand that your relationship ended for a reason, and that was that it broke. I realise that when we become nostalgic over "old loves" and "want them back" it is not necessarily the person we are missing but rather what they represented-companionship, love and someone to turn to. Maybe that is why my grandmother reminisces. Perhaps it is not hat she misses Lebanon, but she craves the familiarity of living in a country where she knows the language.

Be brave and more importantly be smart. Do not look back for positive reinforcement; rather look forward. You have finished that chapter in your life so close the book-if need be become the author of your own novel, just don’t think that what you had is by any means better than where you are going. Remember you broke up because it was broken. And as for my grandmother, well she I recently enrolled in English speaking classes.