It is absolutely astonishing to me the number of people who come out of the woodwork once you’re single. I was completely unaware I was such a hot commodity to those I only ever perceived as friends. To have these individuals asking me to coffee, movies, dinners is…strange to say the least. Part of me believes that these invites are only simple test runs to see where my feelings lie. That’s the whole point of dating in the first place. It’s not like I’m committing myself to a guy after one trip to Starbucks. However, the other part of me fears leading them on. All of these men are sweet and deserve someone equally as good, and I’m not entirely sure I’m ready to give all of myself to another person quite yet. I know I would be going into it with baggage I’ve not yet checked, and that isn’t fair to myself or to them. I’m at this really flighty phase in my life, and I know if I were to attempt to commit to someone right now I would be the one to end it. I would be the one to break someone’s heart.
I don’t know how to word this without sounding like a complete fool, but I cannot deny my desire to be single and stupid for a bit. I want to be able to oggle whom I please and enjoy the possibility of maybe holding their hand and whispering empty words in their ear. It sounds terrible, but this is singledom. I haven’t experienced it in nearly 2 years and there is a renewed sense of novelty to it all. It isn’t a lifestyle I would like to live for any extended period of time, but as of right now I’m digging the freedom. Plus I am also enjoying my time alone. It’s nice just to work through certain things I have to face without having to worry about someone else.
I guess the major issue in this whole situation is distinguishing when my heart will be ready to let someone else in. Will it ever be ready? I don`t know. I can only hope
You didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t want it to, but it hurt. I wasn’t expecting some grand send off, but a hug and well wishes would have been appreciated. It’s still me. Not too long ago we were everything to each other, and now you act like I’ve just been erased. But I guess you shouldn’t matter any more.
Mom: you say you don’t want anyone now, but just you wait till someone sweeps you off your feet. I was at my maddest and most vindictive, with no interest in looking for anyone when I met your father.
“…no matter how much you care about a person, you have to be able to know that you can sit down at night and be happy with who you are without that person. That’s really hard when you’re a lonely emo kid. But you can do it. You should be able to have happiness. If you don’t have that, then you’re not really bringing your whole self to the relationship. You’re using each other as a crutch. But I could be totally fucking wrong.” —Justin Vernon
No Justin, you are totally fucking right. I’ve been reading various interviews from him lately and I swear this man has matched every emotion I have felt in the past 2 months. This quote from an interview with Pitchfork jumped off my screen and punched me right in the face with the potency of its truth. Before I got into my last relationship I was the most comfortable and confident I had ever been in my own skin. I was perfectly content with my life, even though I was alone. I like to think that this positivity radiated outwards and was what attracted him to me.
My happiness with myself continued throughout our relationship, up until his own insecurities began to wane on my well being. A typical man, he was never one for opening up about his feelings and preferred to bury them away in some place dark and secret. Because of work, he had to live in a different city from me, his friends and his family for several months. We saw each other almost every weekend, and I thought we were doing really well with the whole “long distance” thing. Little to my knowledge, he had become depressed and lonely, unsure of his future and frustrated from being away from those he cared about. When I look back now I know there were warning signs: he started to become distant, and I could feel it. I started to think that maybe I was doing something wrong, or wasn’t good enough for him, so I began to change myself to better suit what I thought would make him happy.
It wasn’t until the final night of one of my visits that he confessed to me how horrible he had been feeling, and the deep sadness that had been eating away at him. As he wept he kept saying that he didn’t know what was wrong with him, he didn’t know why he couldn’t love me like before or accept the overwhelming amount of love I had for him. He said he was scared. This was the first time I had ever seen him cry in over a year of knowing him. While I held him and tried to comfort him, I couldn’t help but feel betrayed. I was the one he was supposed to tell everything to, and here I was completely unaware of how terrible he had been feeling.
We agreed we would work through it, banking on the fact he would be home soon and that his return to normalcy would somehow fix whatever had been broken inside him. As I sit here now, I know I should have left him that very night. He broke my heart when he told me the uncertainty of his love, and from that moment on I wasn’t able to trust him. I felt like he was annoyed with me at all times, I was scared of smothering him but also of being too distant, I was scared he was going to go out and find someone different, because what was stopping him? He didn’t love me. He didn’t care. All of those fears were unfounded, and I know he cared, and still cares about me very deeply. He’s just a fucked up boy who needs to sort his shit out before he’s ever able to be happy with someone else. I was foolish and thought that my love would be able to fix this person who was very obviously broken.
It’s a shame and I’m frustrated that I let his inability to happy with himself hinder my own sense of being. I lost myself trying to please him and now I’m left here trying to pick up the pieces. I’m trying to be happy when I go to bed without him, because I deserve it. I hope that one day my confidence will draw in someone new, someone who wants and deserves my love. Perhaps somewhere down the road, when we are both happy with ourselves, we will find our way back to each other, but I’m not holding my breath for him.
I think I’m doing pretty well. I have no ill-will towards him, I still desire to be his friend, though he is having a hard time grappling with that concept. I think he is afraid that I’m either going to lash out at him for hurting me, or attempt to win him back, when neither of those are my intent. I love him, and always will, even if just as a friend. I’ve done my share of coming to terms, now the rest is up to him. All I have left to do is get back to running, eating well, and enjoying time with those I care about. It sounds hokey, but I’m seriously banking on the fact that “time heals all wounds”. I feel better today than the day after we finally ended things, so there has to be some truth to it.
When I look back on the night I made the 3 hour drive home following his emotional confession, it kills me to remember how hard I cried the entire way. How I listened to our friend Justin Vernon and screamed to myself asking why he didn’t love me and what had I done wrong? Now I realize that our loves demise wasn’t my fault, I gave my all, in fact I probably gave too much. To be happy with someone else, you need to be happy with yourself. It is up to him not me, to sort out what brings him joy. In my attempts to solve his problems I lost sight of who I was and what made me happy, and by doing so did no service to either of us. I will never be someone’s crutch, nor will I ever use someone as such. Everyday it is my goal to feel good on my own.
I’m almost as terrible at beginnings as I am at endings, which is unfortunate for me at this point in time because I’m currently at this strange place in my life where the end of things is in conjunction with the start of others. The catalyst to this state of limbo I find myself in can be traced back to February 21st, when the person I cared about more than anything in this world broke me into a thousand little pieces. It’s cliche and terrible, and I’m disgusted with myself for how typical the whole situation is, like it was taken right out of a shitty Jennifer Aniston movie, but it’s the truth. I had my heart broken and my whole world was subsequently rocked.
I’m not going to get into the dirty details of what happened and the even messier portrait of the aftermath. At least not yet. But I do want to tell you where I am at in this very moment. Yesterday I had my last day at a job I was very comfortable with and enjoyed, all because of some innate desire for change and an inability to cope with certain memories that were embedded there. I start a new job which is totally outside of my comfort zone on Monday, and I am slightly terrified. During the final hour of my shift yesterday I began to have a panic attack after a wave of doubt came over me. Had I made a terrible mistake? Should I stay? What if I hate this new job?
I felt like crying and puking at the same time. I had developed such a safe haven at this place and now it felt like I was carelessly abandoning it for the unknown. Before I began to have an emotional breakdown in the middle of work, the more logical side of myself went into damage control. Change isn’t supposed to be comfortable or easy, it’s meant to challenge us and test what we can take. Life would be so boring if we just stayed put because we would never grow, we would just stay stagnant. There’s a reason why I handed in my resignation; the end of my relationship had jarred me into action and I was restless and uncomfortable with where I was. I needed to experience new people and places. Could this new job turn out to be the worst decision I have ever made? Possibly, but it could also turn out to be the best. I wont know until I try. I also have the comfort of knowing the doors to my old job are always open to me if things don’t go as swimmingly as I hope they do.
Life is funny in that nothing is ever final. No mistake it too grave, and no feeling of happiness is infinite. The pleasure we derive from life is dependent on how we deal with the shifting nature of this world. Happiness is a choice, and by focusing on the things that make us feel good, and taking part in activities that better ourselves as people, we are destined for good. All things considered, I like to think I’m handling all the shit that has been handed my way pretty well. Do I have my moments? Definitely. Some nights are worse than others. Sometimes the memories and the hurt are just to much to hold off while I’m lying awake at night, but I’m only human.
So here we are, at both the beginning and the end. I haven’t blogged in a really long time, but I think I need to get back to it for my own sanity. I’ve had a lot of words floating around my head lately and I feel like they could implode at any moment. Writing and running are my two favourite forms of therapy, so expect to see plenty of both. I’m going to document the journey of my own betterment, so he can look at me and regret ever leaving, and so I can look at myself and feel proud.The rest of my life starts right now.
