Red Lights and Stop Signs.

Ever notice what you do at a red light or a backed up stop sign? Do you turn up the music, reach for your phone, look for anything remotely interesting outside? Anything to avoid the quiet inner workings of your preoccupied mind. These red lights can be quite dangerous to a girl who tries to keep busy to take her mind off of how unhappy or sad she still is over a guy who continues to haunt her overworked mind.

You try to take control of your life, because like most breakups..control was denied from you. So you pick up a hobby, start working out, carry your ipod everywhere, make more happy-hour plans than ever before, carry on meaningless text conversations with people you aren't that interested in etc. You do all of this to avoid thinking, torturing yourself rather, with the why's of how it all happened, worse even the play by play and trying to figure out exactly where it went wrong. Now I'm not saying that this happens to everyone at a red light, but riddle me this Batman, what exactly are red lights and stop signs purpose? To slow you down when things get hectic, to create a space between where you are now and where you are trying to go. So indulge me friends...

I think, like for traffic's sake, stop signs..metaphorical red lights in this case also serve a purpose. They are a form of checks and balances, you need to be alone with your thoughts at some point and face those god awful questions you are so desperately seeking the answers to. Granted, at first you do want to keep busy and try to consume your day with positive activities. But then when you are able to go about your day without a breakdown, you have to deal with the emotions you are running away from..because it will just end up eating at you making you a miserable wretch. Sometimes you don't even know how hard you're trying to avoid these thoughts until you are forced to stand still, quitely. Take the time to reflect and face those thoughts, chances are you'll handle it better than you thought..and the more you are able to deal the faster it will help you to move on.

I wish I could say it gets easy and that you'll be fine and be better off blah blah blah..but let's just say i came to my own red light today...and though I did try and avoid thinking by searching for a half decent song on the radio and reaching for my phone...I gave in and actually took it better than I thought. Now if I can go from wishing a man herpes to successfully dealing with my jarred emotions, I think you'll be fine. In the end I realized that I've been through other, maybe even worse situations and I survived...and I will continue to bounce back, because I will never give up on myself...and I'm awesome. You should think the same of yourself.