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When we go through a particularly difficult breakup, one of the most natural questions we end up asking ourselves is, did my breakup actually happen for a reason?

We want to seek meaning and answers. We want to know why.

And just maybe, maybe, if it happened for some yet unknown but greater reason, a reason that’s unseen for those of us who believe in fate, then we can live with it.

Then we can find the strength to move on one day.

It doesn’t matter if you were the one to initiate the breakup or not, the regret and loss can be very real.

I wrestled with this regret for a long time.

Although I was the one to pull away, many times, from my long-term college boyfriend, in the end it started to feel like I was powerless.

Perhaps it was the youthful feeling that I could somehow control the outcome, and when he started to pull away, I felt helpless.

I had been on both sides of this relationship: the rejector and the rejected.

Even writing that sentence now sounds so juvenile as I realize that that’s not real love.

And yet we did love each other deeply, in the way that first love does. We just weren’t mature enough (well, I should only speak for myself here!) to realize how to evolve that love.

So even though I pulled away and thought that I was ready for a new relationship, why did it take me so long to get over it?

Why did I look back so many times wondering: what if? Did my breakup actually happen for a reason?

I had to find sense in that loss. To know that there was a meaning.

I’d find myself Googling the question: Did my breakup actually happen for a reason?

I’ve wrestled with this question for a long time.

Not just the breakup, but a deep desire to believe that everything happens for a reason.

That there is some connectedness in this Universe we live in.

That things aren’t just random and senseless.

I may never be able to answer this question on a theoretical level. There may be some unknowable purpose to life that makes it worth living.

However, I did realize that I may be asking myself the wrong question.

What if it’s not about if it happened for a reason or not.

The point is that it happened.

And my life is forever changed because of it.

It is up to me to make lemonade when there are lemons. It is up to me to seek meaning within my own life.

I have no idea what would have happened if we were still together, but what I do know would not have happened are:

• Living in a home I love in Portland Oregon
• Getting my graduate degree from Harvard University
• Living in Hawaii for a period of time
• Marrying my husband who is a true partner in every sense of the word
• Starting my own business
• Having the most wonderful son who has taught me what love really is  (and another on the way)

So yeah, when I stopped looking backwards and started counting my blessings instead, the question begins to mean less and less.

Life is always changing. Growing. Expanding. Revealing the purpose of itself through love, joy, newness, loss, grief, and heartache.

If you are going through a painful breakup, I’m not going to tell you to “just get over it”, or to spiritualize the pain of the loss away.

It did happen for a reason, Beautiful. And that reason is yours for the making.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Have you been through a difficult breakup? What meaning did you seek from it?

Remember that hundreds of incredible women visit this blog each week, and your comment may just allow them to have a breakthrough.

All my love,

XO

Alexis