moving through pain

damn, it’s been 9 days since i’ve written anything on here…

life has been.. a time recently. whenever i’m in the midst of personal turmoil, i struggle to remember times in my life when i didn’t feel like a “mess,” when i didn’t feel like i was actively losing someone or something, or when i didn’t feel totally lost.. and i question if this state of internal confusion and chaos is my “normal.”

i’m going through a breakup that feels like it’s ripping my heart in two. most of my breakups have come in the form of slow dissatisfaction with the relationship. but i guess you could say this one was more explosive, more centered around a specific event. and boy, it’s been a doozy.

my deep sense of hurt and betrayal in this one has brought me in close contact with my anger and rage. i’ve found myself saying things i never imagined. and part of me wants to contain, to put barriers around my rage, because i’m so accustomed to trying to be the “bigger” person or not saying things i’m going to regret. cause that’s what adults are supposed to do, right?

not this time around. my anger has gone off the rails, and i have knowingly said things i knew weren’t right or true to say. i’ve been intentionally hurtful and mean.

i’ve been in so much pain, i want revenge. i want him to feel the depth and severity of my pain.

i want to make him suffer and regret. i want him to never be able to move on from me.

i have stepped fully into the scorned woman archetype as i let my rage and pain lead the show.

last night, a week after the beginning of all this, i recognized i had to stop. i knew i could no longer justify using him as an outlet for my pain. i understtood i was on a path that would turn toxic real quick if i let it.

because, of course, the anger insulates me from the fullness of the pain. i feel much more comfortable in anger, blaming, shaming, guilting than in the space of being heartbroken and allowing the pain to wash over me without telling a story about it.

the rage is like a drug with a short but satisfying high. i know it’s not the “right” thing to do, but it makes me feel good temporarily, like i’ve evened the scales of suffering. honestly, i didn’t really get to a point where it stopped feeling good. but i could feel my battery running out, and i made an intentional decision not to feed the monster for another round.

part of me is angry at him for allowing me to continue to attack him without creating space or boundaries. annoyed that even in our relationship falling apart i felt the need to worry about him taking care of himself.

part of me decided that i hate him, and i could sense the desire to make him hate in return. because i wasn’t confident in my ability truly turn my back and walk away like i know i need to.

i know it’s over, but part of me still desperately doesn’t want it to be, doesn’t want to have to let go.

walking away from love, even when it’s been fractured beyond repair, continues to feel wrong in some vague way. because i’m holding onto the idea of our love before the crisis, before this point of destabilization.

it’s hard to accept that this is where we are now, to let go of the hope that somehow it’s going to be okay even as a deep, wise voice in my head tells me there’s no coming back from this, at least right now.

so here i am: single, again. looking back on 18 months and 3 “failed” semi-relationships.

i recently read in Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown, “I now know that I was mostly single because I needed to reach a certain level of healing from earlier experiences of sexual trauma.” and woof, did that hit home for me like someone else telling my story.

cause wow, ya. i think this is something i’ve been realizing more and more — that without healing from the layers of trauma i’ve experienced, i won’t be able to show up in relationship the way i need to in order to actually advocate for my needs and desires, and also, to not get lost in and enveloped by my triggers.

i’ve realized that trusting straight men is just something i can’t really do right now. at least not fully with my heart and my body. the layers of harm and deep disappointment are like heavy blankets weighing me down. and until i work through them, i’m also not a safe place for straight men to make mistakes, because i don’t have the capacity for compassion and patience for them.

so, single… being single is honestly more comfortable than being in a relationship for me. but of course, the loss of companionship hurts. having a person is quite nice — someone to share the mundane details of your life with, who’s a consistent source of encouragement and support.

especially as i get older and more of my close friends pair up, being single can feel much lonelier than back in my 20s.

less of my friends are up for a random, unscheduled calls. for hours-long conversations about life and bullshit.

so the older i get, the more a romantic partner seems to fit my needs out of circumstance. because i yearn to deeply share my life with someone else, and i’ve been finding that less in my friendships these days.

fuck, i can feel my heart splitting open again as i type these words and recognize the state of i’m in. i’m so sad. the loss runs deep even though this relationship was shorter than all my other serious ones, burned up real quick.

i don’t want to be sad. i’m tired of feeling bad. i want to feel joy and pleasure and aliveness. maybe part of the problem is that i view sadness in opposition to feeling good. and maybe that doesn’t have to be the case. because even in tragedy, there is beauty.

so maybe the better intention would be to find the aliveness in my sadness and the beauty in my pain, as cliche as that sounds. i mean, i guess that’s what a lot of art is, right?