As I stagger back and forth in my effort to move on from this guy, from this almost-relationship with loose ends left untied, I struggle with thoughts both positive and negative. To leave it and grow, or stay and fight. These are some of the thoughts I have at this stage.
Thumbing through a book by Deepak Chopra (I would have laughed at this earlier), I recognized quite a few things in there that are both comforting and disconcerting at once. External things commonly have this effect on people that we are no longer in control. And there are regular stages in the aftermath that many go through. I might actually have to buy that book. But at the back of my mind I want to be a sturdy ol’ person who doesn’t need some stranger to tell them how to do things. Who knows life is an individual experience and you just have to go through it.
Here are a few thoughts from my current state:
1. Suddenly being over 25 is a huge fucking deal.
I feel like I should have everything together. There are some things I should have by now. It’s like adulthood hit me suddenly.
2. Always being mature about choices, made me feel confident and therefore vulnerable to a giant punch in the gut.
Because I was equipped for everything before. Yes I had giddy moments, little pains and dramas, awkward decisions. But I was never unreasonable and jumping both feet in to anything. With every bad experience, I always come out wiser and all is okay. I can keep my chin up.
Easing into this one with all the pragmatism, maturity plus the added benefit of experience, meant that I was truly wide open. The grace and wisdom with which I dealt with everything made me feel I could stomach all. I would be level-headed as always. But instead it meant this hurt so much more. Now that means I have thrown off balance much much harder than all the foolish girls who regularly get into fits of emotion over guys.
I don’t know if that should teach me being prepared means jack shit in life. Or that life will always teach you that you don’t know everything. I don’t know what I should take from it. What I know is that having such an open-ended question is not that fun.
3. I Don’t Know Everything
In fact I feel more and more that I don’t know anything.
4. 20 Somethings in Affluent Societies Often Flounder the Same Way
Maybe this ‘being educated’ thing makes us think we know a lot, or pressures us to behave a certain unmaniacal way. Maybe social media feeds comparisons and freak-outs about what we’re doing with our lives.
But the slew of thought-catalog types lists suggests lots of people go through the same thing. And Facebook feed self-pity.
5. Time Heals
You can distract. You can read. You can really let the emotions take over. You can try replacements.
But whatever you do, you still need time. There is no quick-fix no matter how many people have gone through it before you, no matter how much wisdom you can tap on, whatever your friends say.
6. Uncertainty is a Part of Life
What freaks me out is the extent of it. I don’t quite believe in “fate” and “meant to be” because there are so many options in life that surely every choice changes our path. Things are not pre-determined. Uncertainty is part of the beauty of all that.
But getting used to some level of uncertainty made me feel comfortable enough that this WHAM hit me in the head with the EXTENT of uncertainty that came with it.
Especially when you put your faith in someone else, you surrender a lot to the power of uncertainty. Not that that can stop us from trusting people because life is nothing if you don’t let anyone in. So you know it’s there but you have to keep going until it rears its ugly head.
7. Date Men, Not Boys
Rai is a man. And I wanted in. Before him, I was young and dating boys. After him, it was like rapid dating/flings and it became obvious to me how unattracted I am to boys now.
The problem is, as I lose more of my demure identity, the more I seem to attract the youngish guys (the way I probably desired when I was younger but that never quite happened…). But hey, just because they are plentiful doesn’t mean they are quality.
The Swedish guy I’d spent a week with was absolute quality. He was a man. And that’s the kind of time I’d like to spend with someone. You aren’t busy weighing everything or making trivial attempts to impress. You are comfortable and interested and their mind excites you. Even if affection comes slow, it feels a whole lot better. Okay this last part I knew before. Maybe this is a worth a point on its own…
8. Experiences Have Taught Me to Lighten Up. But Lightening Up is Keeping me from the Good Catches
I was the girl people knew they’d have to take seriously. And though I always had a pleasant cheery disposition, I also come across mature and level-headed, and that means people take me seriously.
Eventually, I decided to take things lightly and treat boys with less seriousness. They don’t always know what they want and many will transit through your life. So I lightened up and fun was okay. In part this is from travelling, but when it comes to boys, largely from them wanting “fun” when you are really interested in who they are as a person.
I learnt to roll with it. And recently, I was accused of “using someone”. Then it hit me, I learnt so much to play by their rules that I can be guilty of being “too light” to them. I could be the bad guy. Being the girl who didn’t expect much and treating them lightly, could actually be a bad thing. If this shows on the outside, I will not find a good catch because I appear too casual.
I have no idea how to deal with this. Did I change too much? Do I go back to being more serious? Does it depend on the person?
9. Mi Casa es Su Casa: Empathy & Internalization
Rai did not hide baggage, or bad past, or bad traits. He didn’t flaunt them as an excuse for anything, but he didn’t hide them when they came up. I’d even said “if you were that kind of guy I wouldn’t be here talking to you.” And he’d said “actually, in my past there are these things.” He elaborated a little but said it’s not stuff he likes to talk about. BUt when we are together , later, he will tell me. I said “oh”.
I hesistated. But I didn’t feel like fleeing. It definitely made a mark but I wasn’t afraid.
I see now that it is because he was real and our connection real, that I wasn’t afraid to run just because he’d had real-life problems and baggage. It happens. In early stages of dating, you evaluate and you can run when you find this out. In late stages, if you find out this secret, it could feel like betrayal and you could run. But at our stage, he was a man I wanted to be with and a bad past, things inside that bother him, wasn’t enough for me to flee. I guess I was already his woman by then.
His problems were mine.
I thought about him being a widower. I wondered what it felt like to lose someone you love without warning. I wondered how one deal’s with problem-surprises this big in life and how you can carry on without losing hope. What do you in the days when the impact is fresh? How do you avoid feeling a victim? How do you socialize without feeling no one gets how you feel? How do you miss having a woman around but you’re unable to touch/desire/care for another woman without reminders of the true partner you’d lost? How does death impact us? How can you be young and not be spoilt by tragedy this big? How much strength must you find? How alone do you feel?
I thought about all of that. Not just feeling bad for him but really thinking about it, as one of life’s things. It was serious. And I stayed to process all of it and feel grief and pain.
I stayed to think he will always have this weight on him and I’d never ever be warranted to belittle it.
I took it on. I was weighed down, I lost a little bit of the sparkly views on life, I thought seriously. And I took him on. It would be a serious life we start together and I wanted in.
I shared a part in his pain and baggage. I internalized his problems, his pain, his life. And then I was abandoned. That’s why it hurts so much.
10. His pain is NOT bigger than mine
For much of this journey, I have said his problems are bigger than mine and I never wanted to put my problems on him. I am a woman who is hurt by a man and having some troubles in the quest for love. For that beautiful life where everything falls together.
How can I expect him to put my needs first when his core was still fumbly? I was completing a picture, he was just trying to get back in one piece.
However, this has changed. At this point, we are reaching almost a year of this journey, wherein he has left me to ‘wait’ (to put it simplistically) during several gaps. He has chosen to act a certain way. There were some things out of his control. All in all, now this is as much about me as him. I am hurt. My life has been impacted. And his actions have to do with it. I took on those pains he had, and add to it all the shit I’ve been through with/for/because of him. No i am not saying by any means that I feel the full impact of his grief on the same level that he does. But I have a portion of it and my real life problems too, so yeah, I have problems and this hurts and I have a right to feel all that I feel.
We are two adults on an equal plane. Now we see what happens as two individuals making a choice.
Ella | Long Distance Flutters 