Before my current girlfriend who is the most amazing person I’ve ever met, I was in an eight year relationship. We were high school sweethearts, but things ended pretty badly. We even tried to maintain a friendship after the healing process but it just couldn’t work. I’ve erased her from my life, but I would never want to erase the memories of what we had. I learned so much about relationships from my time with her, and I needed to go through that painful breakup to become the man I am today and be a guy that an amazing girl like my Arlene deserves. Erasing those memories would be erasing almost a third of my life, my transformative years, for the sake of losing that pain. But in reality, you only need time to erase that pain, and as long as you keep an open mind, you can transform those painful memories into a life lesson, a jumping point towards become the best version of you that you can be. Embrace the pain, because weathering the storm is the only way you’ll get see the light again.