and the waves still roll in

you never really stop processing

A major theme over the past 9 months of my life have been processing my singlehood and understanding what it really means to be ‘single’. To be ‘on my own.’

I’ve relived and reprocessed my breakup with my long-term partner in probably a thousand different ways at this point and it’s so interesting to see how on each recounting, I still find new things to critique or pore over or discover about myself, a new layer unlocked.

This past week, I told my therapist that I had gotten really upset over some new information I had learned regarding my ex and how it really fucked me up. “I’m angry because I wanted that, and he told me no. And now I find out all these months later that he ended up doing that exact thing. Just not with me.”

“Okay…so why are you mad?”

“I’m mad because he did the thing.”

“Go one layer deeper. Why are you mad that he did the thing?”

“Well, because I wanted to do this thing and he said no. And he ended up doing it anyway.”

“So you’re mad because…”

“Because he’s changing. He’s capable of change!” I had exclaimed to her. And I quickly covered my bases, tacking on a healthy “To be fair, even if he had made that change, we still would’ve broken up. There were a lot more issues than just that.”

“So he’s changing and that makes you upset. One layer deeper.”

“Well, I just. I think he’s changing and he’s getting…better?”

“And you feel like…you’re losing. You’re trying very hard to ‘win’ your breakup and him changing this maybe means that he’s healing and winning.”

And I sat there in that therapy session, staring at the sky, biting the inside of my cheek and shaking my head because that was exactly it. The root of all of my anguish and turmoil over the past 9 months. I wanted to win.

I’ve been wrestling with this a lot, lately, and I’ve discussed it on the blogs before. A lot of the times when I make decisions I feel sometimes this immense pressure and hear a voice in my head ask, “How would this look like if he knew you were doing this? Do you look desperate? Do you look pathetic? Do you look like you’re losing?”

I know that time heals all wounds and that in time I’ll stop feeling like this. A lot of those feelings ebb and flow. It’s not a constant worry but something that just flares up occasionally.

Overall, I feel as though my life has been going very good, actually. I love my roommates. I love my job. I’m the strongest I’ve been in a long time. I feel secure in so many of my relationships. I feel like I’m finally being a lot pickier and more intentional with my romantic life. I’m cooking a lot more.

There’s a lot of things going so well and the last thing I want to do is sound ungrateful. I’m living such an incredible and fulfilling life and I am in love with New York and all of my friends, which is why I think it still floors me that in a life where I have so much going for me, I still feel the weight of the breakup heavy on me.

Simultaneously, there’s been a paranoia of sorts I’ve had with the breakup. It’s been hard for me to blog because of this—not because I have trouble putting it into words, but moreso it’s hard for me to talk about it on such a public platform especially knowing that anyone can be reading these. My ex, his friends, all these things. What I get really nervous of is that these blogs really only showcase one dimension, a snapshot of how I’m feeling, and I get nervous that people don’t realize that these feelings are fleeting. That these blogposts are just my top of mind—they’re not this concrete solid unchanging thing.

I’ve had people throw blogposts in my face, asking if I’m really okay because my blogposts say otherwise and it makes me feel gross in a way I can’t even really describe. To cite these posts as some concrete proof of my wellbeing or state, when they can be weeks old or months old, makes me feel deeply uncomfortable. And people feel entitled to making these sweeping claims because they read these posts and suddenly feel as though they know me, that they can make deductions or hypotheses or claims about my psyche from them alone. As a result, I’ve had a hard time reckoning being genuine and vulnerable online with also preserving my sense of self and keeping boundaries.

Thankfully, I’m taking a really long vacation with my family starting next week so it’ll give me a lot of time to process and recharge and take a breather from the city. Really focus on what’s important, rather than heavily thinking about previous decisions and asking myself if I did the right thing. When I’m with my family, I feel a certain kind of reassurance that can only really come from them. Being with them reminds me that everything really, really will be okay. My cousin and my mother are some of the strongest and most independent, self-sufficient women I’ve ever met and having them around reminds me that I, too, will get through this and push through.

So yeah, I’ve been doing well. But also kind of not. And the waves will still roll in and I’ll just ebb and flow with them as they go.