It sounds like you are in a good place. Your ex and the pain is a distant memory and you have a clear plan for the future. Accepting impermanence and change is not easy. You seem to be embracing it, and it is nice to read about.
I still look back and feel the hurt and get angry about that hurt that was put upon me. Phantom limb pain perhaps?
Sometimes I feel like what happened was not really my life. But a alternative path that was never supposed to happen. Or was supposed to happen but not to be actually experienced by me or by my reality. Almost like a bad dream, you wake up from. Or an anxiety that never actually manifests but then it does. I never thought my ex would become the person he did. I am sometimes sad for him.
Is the growth that comes from pain a gift? I don't know. I know I certainly don't sweat the small stuff any more because I know how bad it actually can get. And i know I can survive life when it does get bad. That makes me a much better person to deal with. I still would not want the bar raised any more though. If personal growth only comes through intense pain, at this point I'm ok the way I am !
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