Move on and move up!

Easter Sunday reminds us of resurrection and redemption. In its most biblical sense, it tells the Christian world that the sins of the faithful had been paid for by Jesus when, without an iota of sin, He died on the cross for us. 

From death to resurrection, Jesus moved on. And He moved up. But before moving up, He had to experience first heartaches — from the people He wanted to serve, the people He trusted, the people He loved. Despite the betrayal done unto Him, He was able to forgive. To this day, He continues to forgive.

Having said that in my introduction, I will not continue anymore to make this a religious article. Instead, allow me to turn this into a piece about romance or the lack of it — with heartbreaks as my handle. But surely, in the end of this piece, I will assert that “moving on and moving up,” as shown by Jesus 2,000 years ago, are the cure to many a love-related heartache we experience.

Broken-heartedness, according to my doctor friend, is an ailment. Because many people experience it, a heartache is as common as the flu yet it can be as fatal as any life-threatening disease. Yes, doctors will tell you, some people die of being brokenhearted.

A few people I know can just snap out of broken-heartedness that easily. Others, however, ruminate in the abyss of loneliness for years. Though many of these brokenhearted people can function in their daily life, they still carry inside them that heartache. Some carry the pain for years; others, for life.

Why do people stay brokenhearted for many years? It is because they don’t put a cap to their misery. They have turned into masochists of their pain. They seem to have fallen in love with pain and it has become their friend, their lover. They have become fixated with it that it has become a regular fixture in their emotional mantle. The pain may be caused by an ex-lover but staying with misery is already caused by the self.

So I say: Stop enjoying that drama and get a life before your drama gets your life. Throw to the fires your emotional inventory of past hurts and pains. Why is there a need to put a stop to the drama? Simply because you deserve to resurrect and find beauty in life anew. Prolonged suffering is a disservice to oneself. The person who caused your heartbreak has already moved on. Time to wake up. Wake up!

When do you put a cap to the pain? The best time to know when it’s time to stop flirting with misery is when you discover that you don’t deserve to get hurt anymore. If you’ve been suffering for a long time, say six months, a year or two, the answer is: Now. It’s in giving up that we experience growing up.

Like all suffering, we must come from the vantage point of understanding the root cause of it. It is human nature to be affected by failure and loss of an amorous affair. So, we grieve. It is in mourning that we acknowledge the loss.

We also cry. We engage ourselves in analysis paralysis, trying to fathom why and where we failed. At times, we venture into persecution complex.

We have the conscious effort to get up from the lethargy that keeps us from borrowing further trouble. Yet, we can’t just hack it. So, we allow ourselves to sulk. We imagine things. We replay sweet memories that become bitter the more we remember them.

When the suffering has lasted for years, you owe it to yourself to move on. To move on is to have the conscious effort to let go of hurts and pains. It also entails forgiving the person who hurt you. Moving on also means forgiving yourself.

True healing of yourself begins by putting a cap to your pain, by breaking up from your dalliances with misery, by letting go. And letting go is tantamount to reclaiming self-preservation. It also means letting God.

Like all ethics and etiquettes, moving on and preserving oneself are crafts that can be mustered and mastered by people who want to get out of the crude and rude vicious cycle of falling in and out of love with the people who love them less or who don’t love them at all. These skills are the summation of one’s conscious conviction — albeit peppered and punctured with nerve-wracking and heart-wrenching feelings — to be happy and complete in one’s silence and solitude.

Perhaps it is in this silence and solitude that you can find the balm to your newly recovered heart. Redeem yourself by letting go. Learn how to pick up the pieces of your shattered life. Find a support group or go to the right places where good people congregate. And let the healing begin.

It is in resurrection that we learn the value of redemption. Resurrection is about moving on. So, please rise from the dead void of your heart and move up.

Today is Easter Sunday, you deserve your own resurrection. Even Jesus, I’m sure, will tell you — move on and move up!

(Thank you for all your letters. For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com or my.new.beginnings@gmail.com. You may want to follow me on Twitter @bum_tenorio. Happy Easter!)