I'm not much of a video gamer but I know what it feels like to be on level 54 and have to start all over because the game didn't save. It's a similar feeling to breaking up with your best friend, the person that you knows you better than yourself, because things just didn't end up the way they were supposed to be. A weird comparison to relationships, I know, but I think they have many similarities.

Many of my friends (I'm believed to think) are too afraid to move on because they are too afraid to start over. They don't want to accept the fact that their relationship is over and there isn't an option to try again. Sure you can watch the replays over and over and over again, but you're still going to have to start over somewhere, sometime in the near future.

So why is starting over so scary when it shouldn't be?

Because starting over means that things have ended and for real this time. It means that the person that you've been so open and honest with for an x amount of time is now the person you tell nothing to. They were the person that was there for you when your grandma died, your first year away from home at college, and/or the person that you ran to when you and your parents had a fight. But that's over now and you feel lost without that person.

We need to open up.

This is where a lot of us develop a 'wall.' The thing that protects us from getting hurt by other people, and now that one of the few people that have taken that wall down aren't there anymore, we're left to feel even more vulnerable, as well as even more guarded. We protect ourselves so well that it's hard for us to even open up to our closes family members and friends. But that's what they’re there for, for you.

It's time to move on.

We go from having someone that we share everything with to having no one in a blink of an eye, which is like trying to stop smoking cold turkey. It feels weird, we're uncomfortable, and we don't know who else to run to. Which means that we're wanting to run back to that person. But that's not an option. It will take time to find someone to open up to and that's okay. It's okay to not have someone to hold your hand everyday because you have family and friends that will be there for you too. When the time is right and your world and someone else’s world a line, you will finally be comfortable with taking down that wall for someone else. This most likely won't be the next day or even in a couple months but when it finally does happen, I hope that, that wall stays down permanently.