Déjà vu...

I like to think of life like a video game - you have to successfully avoid various pitfalls on this level in order to pass to the next level. Each time something trips you up and you have to go back to the start, you have a better idea of the dangers that lie ahead when moving through that same level again. Hopefully, on this second go-around, you'll remember where you made a mistake last time and be able successfully avoid it this time. Ultimately, you'll be able to avoid all the pitfalls on that level and move on to the next level. Very similar to how one repeats the same mistakes in life, until they finally figure out a different way to handle a particular issue or situation and they're able to move past that roadblock.

Take dating, for example. How many times have you found yourself saying, 'Wait a minute....I've dated this guy before.' Not literally, of course, but figuratively. Maybe it stemmed from the high school obsession with 'The Bad Boy.' Every guy you've dated since high school bares some vague resemblance to the original 'Bad Boy' you fell for as a naive freshman.

Personally, I've found myself cycling through various versions of the same guy from different times in my life. There was the cute but insanely jealous guy from high school. Somehow, I found myself dating the same guy-type in my mid-twenties. The difference? I was far more aware of when things needed to end with the mid-twenties guy and was able to pull the plug on that relationship far quicker than I did the first time I encountered this guy-type my sophomore year of high school.

Okay, so there was some lesson learned there. A nugget of wisdom that I was able to glean from that first disaster so that I could avoid as big a disaster when I got older. But then why do I find myself still making mistakes in my 30s? Shouldn't I have learned enough life lessons from my teens and 20s to be able to avoid those same bad decisions?

I've made the mistake of falling for the smart-yet-vaguely-self-centered guy. So why did I fall for him again? I know how things ended with the first guy that fit this description, yet I still had hope that the second guy that fit this description might be different.... Nope. Ended in pretty much the same way. The only lesson I could apply from the first disaster was how best to handle the pain of heart ache.

When your heart breaks, its okay. Life goes on. Cliche as it sounds, you really will end up a stronger person. Despite the pain, I can now, in my 30s, see that heart ache is more an opportunity to improve my life in some positive way rather than seeing it as an end to the world as I know it. That constitutes as personal growth of some sort, right?

But until my heart finally catches up to what my brain has already realized, I'll just have to rely on my pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream to get me through.