To All My Single Ladies

When I'm not preoccupied my mind wanders-to him.
A mixture of hurt and hate make my heart race.
We haven't spoken since it happened.
Well I have, he hasn't responded.
I'm reminded of the time before and the other time before, and all the other times before when we ended things.
We've been on and off since January 2013.
I've spent most of the past three years trying to make it work.
I've spent it in full bliss, in what I believe was true love.
I've spent it in pure hatred, in what I believe was true heartbreak.

I've never regretted a moment of it.
Every tear, smile, frustration, was meant to happen to lead me here.
And where is here?

Here is a place in which I'm at peace with my breakup. Where I'm starting a journey to be at peace with myself.

And that sounds chill and all but what the fuck does that actually mean?

Well it starts with forgiving myself. Forgiving myself for not being able to give him what he needed. Forgiving my flaws that helped drive us apart. Forgiving my actions during the hard times.

Then it continues with accepting that he's not the person for me. Accepting that it's really over. This part is hard. Accepting that there could be so much love, dedication and work put into something that "fails".

Here means being able to look objectively at our relationship. Seeing that it's not all my fault as my demons would have me believe. And that I'm not too fucked up to be loved.

Here means being incredibly self-aware. Watching my actions and seeing how every time I indulge in attention, drinking, food, my appearance that I'm left empty.

It's accepting that the answer isn't out there. The thing that will fill me isn't a guy, it isn't a job, it isn't a lifestyle, or a weight. It is me.

I have no real clue what that looks like but here are somethings I'm trying:

Therapy
Acupuncture
Cutting guys out unless they are friends
Only going to "the club" with friends
Putting more effort into my friendships
Spending a lot more time by myself reading, crafting, meditating, yogaing, exercising, whatevering
Exploring what makes me me. Accepting who I am rather than trying to change her.
Finding out what makes me truly happy and not momentarily.

For once I'm excited to be on my own. It's scary and empty sometimes but there's also something incredibly freeing about it.

They Say You're Supposed To Feel.

Feel they say, allow yourself to feel.
But how do you do that when it's as though that feeling will take you whole?
When the thoughts of him come and your body tells you to run.
When you forget how to breathe and and instead of gasping for air you grasp for him.
For his familiarity.
For his love.
For what you thought was real and true and was you.
When you lose composure and control of what comes out of you and what comes of you.
And the memories fly at you faster than you can handle.
Each one tearing at your heart.
Twisting it tighter, squeezing the life out of you.
The ones where you were so new and exciting to each other.
Where he made you dinner in his brother's apartment.
And showed you the one shelf he got in the fridge.
And you saw his family's pictures and wondered if you would ever meet them.
If they knew how special this person was to you.
Where hugs were awkward because you didn't know how you fit together yet.
When you can't believe that just last week you were in his arms casually planning your weekend.
Where his body is as familiar as your bed, as comforting.
When you're so exhausted you take naps at 7:30 at night.
And when you wake up you don't see the point in getting up.
And you go through this, the motions, the feelings that you're supposed to feel and you hit them as hard as they hit you because there's nothing that can hide you from them when they are this painful. This real. There is no avoiding the suffocating, heart wrenching emotion that comes with losing your best friend and with it years of your life.
Those seconds you took for granted.
Those memories flood you and consume you until you can't remember why you broke up in the first place because those memories seem more real than the reality that you are without the person that was your reality for so long.
And as you catch your breath and your eyes run out of tears and you realize your cat has been staring at you for the whole ordeal.
You realize that you allowed yourself to feel.

The Breakup Post

I am somehow full while feeling completely empty.
My stomach will not tolerate food.
But there's a ravenous hunger in my heart.
The emotional indecisiveness is exhausting.
I feel like a contradiction.
I am frozen while I cannot stop moving.
I can't speak about what happened out of respect for my ex.
But nothing feels more natural than to write.
I feel stuffed up, like there's so much in me that when I open up to this blank screen it overtakes me.
Write about your feelings, get them out, figure them out, move on.
Do what you do Kris.
Writing used to come to easily to me, I used to feel. I used to have no fear about what you thought. What I wrote. Treatment gave me this confidence that the real world has suffocated. Having to hide what's really happening, wanting to hide what's really happening. Shame overtaking my better judgement--no I can't tell them that. No you can handle it yourself. But every time I do open up every time I tell you guys I don't know what the fuck I'm doing you open your hearts to me. And like I said my heart is empty right now.
Years of my life vanished in instants.
What mattered most to me doesn't exist anymore.
And what am i left with?
The answer is obviously me.
But I don't know who the fuck that is, I don't know what she's doing. What she's capable of. What she wants.
There are moments of excitement, I am free. This is meant to happen. This will turn out alright.
And then that shaky confidence is ripped out from under me when I am reminded of him.
The night is the worst.
My empty apartment, even though I've spent countless nights alone here, now reminds me of the hole in my life. I wake up anxious and I go to bed with a sick stomach.
Even if this was meant to be and this is right and this will make me better in the long run--it's not the long run it's the now. And the now hurts. The now lost her best friend and with it the confidence, the security, the safety of being someone's someone. Of mattering. Of being loved.
And yes I know love yourself before you love others.
But that doesn't give me peace.
It scares the shit out of me.

I am just me and right now me doesn't feel whole.

What It Feels Like

As the anger dissipates the pain takes hold.
The tears swell and my throat tightens. 
I don't want to feel this way anymore. 
I'm sick of feeling this way.
I'm sick of thinking about you.
The only thing that seems to stop the thought of you is you. 
My strength, my determination, my pride flows out of my body with the tears.
I want comfort. I want you.
The thought of laying safe in your arms, overrules all logic. 
I can feel your body next to mine.
I know it. Every curve, muscle and scar.
I was once safe, I was once yours. 
The thought is too much.
My body braces as though ready to run.
I want to run to you.
Release the emotion in movement.
I'm frozen as my heart drops and reality sets in.
I can't.
There is no you anymore.

It's impossible to move forward when you can't stop looking back. 

I Fucking Hate Love Songs.

Now that I'm single and going through what I can dramatically yet honestly call heartbreak -- I fucking hate love songs.

And yes it's because they remind me of what I thought I had, and what I thought was true (still working on how to work that out -- it looks something like radical acceptance, grieving, and a stark change in perspective).

But it's also because all they talk about is being reliant on the other person. NOT HEALTHY (said in Gru's voice from Despicable Me--watched that too many times lately--no, there's no such thing). Like I can't live without you. Fucking romanticizing codependency.

No, no, no.

And as I go through some of my playlists now I'm doing a major overhaul because sadly but not surprisingly most of the songs that used to make me happy make me sick. They remind me of my twisted, distorted view that I was supposed to throw myself into love and my relationship to be happy. My existence revolved around my other half, my Mr., my man.

GAH NO.

I can't say it enough. Seeing what happened to me when he left my life--how depressed, and seemingly incapable I was freaks me the fuck out. That just one person had such a hold on me. That I thought I was being a great girlfriend by being so dedicated (well yes loyalty and commitment is important) but just that I threw myself into the relationship with such abandon that I abandoned myself.

I mean it makes sense. I came here in early recovery, no friends, no car, no stability but him. So I can't blame myself but I can learn from, er--myself.

They always say you can't love anyone else until you love yourself. And that is so true. I couldn't find peace within me, I couldn't give myself grace, I couldn't give myself credit--I NEEDED him (and others) to tell me all of these things.

And now I'm learning how to do that. I think I bitched about not seeing how this was a good thing a while back, but now...I see the light ha no but really it's fucking great. Like I talked about before. I'm finally learning how to take care of myself emotionally and well physically (since we're on that subject--yay for eating) which I never learned before.

By doing the following:

-positive self talk (it feels really fake and stupid sometimes but my goodness it makes my days easier)
-learning how to ground when I start to spin in anxiety
-asking myself what I need (am I scared? how do I comfort that? am I lonely? let's call someone)
-distraction (not avoidance)
-and that's about it for now

I'm not sure if my posts are getting repetitive. I just have never seen life in this way and I am so damn excited about it (scared, scared should be put in there too). I've been posting a shitton of selfies and I'm proud of me statuses because I've never given myself credit for my looks or my efforts before and I'm in the honeymoon? stages of all these beautiful realizations. And also you folks are pretty damn nice and boost my spirits (hey I'm not that self-sufficient yet).

So while being so intertwined with someone you can't live without them (Twilight?) sounds romantic and what most of the media seems to tell us is what we should be searching for, the idea of being independent, confident and reliant on no one but myself is so sexy to me. Powerful.

So screw you Disney (but seriously I love your work---I just think it's fucked), and love songs, and Twilight. I'm out to be my own Prince Charming.

The Breakup

"What if it was ok to be yourself?" asks my therapist.

My heart drops into my stomach. My immediate answer is "No."

I try to wrap my head around it, not only the question but my reaction. Isn't that what I'm all about? I thought I was so independent. Isn't that what all those songs are about? "I don't fuck with you."? What all those Pintrest pins are about? "Just be yourself, everyone else is taken." 

I'm told to sit with this feeling. I don't want to. There's a pain in my chest and my eyes burn. Oh man, here they come. And I ugly cry about the realization that for most of my life by very influential people I've been told I'm not ok the way I am, to deal with myself, that I can't handle you anymore.

Since this session, my nearly year and half relationship  has ended. That question keeps finding its way to the forefront of my mind. "What if it was ok to be yourself?" 

My relationship didn't last because we wanted different things. He knew what he wanted, and he wanted it more than me. And me? I thought I wanted him. I thought I was being so smart and authentic by putting my relationship first, believing in love, fighting for it, dedicating myself to it. Doesn't lifelong happiness matter more than a job? 

The answer is yes, but what I was investing all of myself into was not going to end up the way I wanted. But I kept pushing, it had to work, I didn't leave everything I loved for it to all fall apart. And yet that's what it was doing. Slowly but surely our differences appeared and I didn't want to face them. 

I have spent most of my life thinking that things go sideways because there is something wrong with me. People left me throughout the course of my ED because they couldn't deal with me, because I wasn't good enough, because there was something wrong with me.

That's the storyline (oh therapy) that I've told myself over and over and over. And believed it wholeheartedly because I needed to make sense of what was happening, so that way I could try and fix it. And try I did. I would try to mold myself into the person I thought I needed to be so I could be accepted, and was exhausted because my authentic self was screaming at me that this wasn't right. I got very good at ignoring it.

And after my conversation with my therapist, a couple of TED talks and a fuckton of courage, I'm noticing more and more that I shut my heart up the instant it doesn't make sense. My ex wanted things I thought I should want. So I tried to conform, I tried to continue to push us together as we moved farther away. My anxiety escalated, my drinking and my ED. My body, my heart and my mind were screaming this isn't right but because I couldn't make sense of it I couldn't fix it so I pushed on. Until I was too tired to go on.

And now I'm left with the knowledge that I loved someone so hard and they didn't love me the same way. And that fucking blows. And this human isn't a bad person, he just wasn't the person for me AND THAT'S NOT MY FAULT, it's no one's fault. We've said our pieces and while you'd think that's enough to move on it's not. There is no defiant end point to when I have to be ok. I can process this anyway I want to. I can continue to talk it out. I can think I want him back, I can hate him, there is no right way to do this except to listen to my heart, accept my feelings with grace and curiosity. 

But it's interesting to watch me begrudgingly do so, even though I know it's right, I know it's what I want, what I need, my heart still drops into my stomach when our separation is apparent. 

When people breakup everyone always talks about personal growth, more you time. And at first I was like what the fuck does that REALLY mean? But as I type this I see how much I'm already learning about myself, my past and what can be my future. 

• I need to make the decision to change the storyline I tell myself.
• Listen to my heart and my head.
• Not have judgement on my feelings, rather look at them with curiosity because they have something to tell me.
• It's ok to not be ok and to reach out to friends.
• It's time I come first (and I always will).
• I need to take care of and respect my mind, body and soul now more than ever.
• I deserve to be loved and that includes love from myself.