Broken and Done

When you break a bone or get seriously injured, there's a series of emotions you experience as the healing process occurs.
1. You feel shock at first, pained by the wound.  The experience is new to you, and you begin to realize how often you used that particular part of your body.
2. Next, you start learning to live without it.  You reorganize your habits to favor your wound.  You might learn to use crutches, or to write left-handed.  The learning is tedious, but rewarding after some initial frustration.
3. Finding that some tasks simply require full use of your wounded limb, you become angry and frustrated.  Sometimes even depressed.  You can't do as much as you used to, and you miss it.
4. You begin to cope with life as you are, wound and everything.
5. As your wound reaches the stage where it's no longer constantly painful, you start wanting to use it again, but you can't.  You need to give it time to heal still, lest it not regain its full strength.
6. Your energy has returned and the cast is almost ready to come off.  Almost.  Mentally, you're ready to move on.  You're done with the cast.  Done with the crutches.  You're sick of being wounded, being in pain, being encumbered by this thing in your life.  You're mentally ready for the next thing, but your body is not fully healed yet.  You just have to wait it out.
7. Finally, the cast comes off.  The crutches are gone.  The bandages have been removed.  Physical evidence of the wound is reduced to a scar on that spot, but the pain still shows up, occasionally.  You favor that limb for some time.  You're extra careful with it, not wanting to be hurt again.

It occurs to me that these steps are oddly similar to the stages of recovery at the end of a relationship.

Right now, I'm in stage 6.  I am so emotionally done with being hurt, angry, sensitive.  I'm mentally finished with all the crying, moping around.  I want to move on.  I'm ready for the next adventure.

But my heart is still broken.  The bandages are still there, covering the wound as it slowly grows back together.

I'm mentally and emotionally tired of all the breakup trauma.  But I have to admit that I invested five years of my life (that's one-fifth, twenty percent for you stats people) in this relationship.  The pain's not just going to ebb away.  I have just lost five years' worth of relationship energy.  It's going to take a while to recover.

And all I can do is wait.