My partner and I spent an amazing weekend at Rockaway Beach. We walked along the beach, walked out on the jetty, watched movies, slept a lot, ate Indian food (which I’ve realized is my second favorite ethnic food), and allowed ourselves to relax. A lot has happened in the last several months, some of it good, some of it sad. All of it has meant that we’re emotionally exhausted, so the weekend away was much needed.
Last year at this time, I was seeing a man who I was sure I would end up being in a romantic relationship with. I was falling in love for the first time since my divorce, and while I was enjoying that feeling, I was also horribly anxious because I didn’t know what his feelings were for me. The connection ended in heartbreak, and while we remained friends for a short time, he made it increasingly obvious that he couldn’t be just my friend. He pushed against my boundaries almost every time we talked, even after I was committed to my current partner, and it got to the point where I was too uncomfortable to let it continue. Around the end of summer last year, I cut off all contact with him. (When a man who dumps you over text tells you months later that he still has one of your t-shirts and wears it around his house sometimes, you know that things are toxic as fuck.)
It was hard to cut him out of my life because there were a lot of things I respected about him. But protecting my personal space, my energy, and my time is top priority. No one is entitled to me as a friend, a romantic partner, or otherwise. I and I alone decide who does and does not deserve to be in my life, and to what capacity. So I made a choice that was hard, but it ultimately made me feel a lot more free and confident in my own instincts.
I was looking through my Facebook memories today and I came across this post I made while he and I were still seeing each other. I could tell that things were changing. I could tell he was starting to pull away in some ways, but I didn’t know how to bring it up. I didn’t know how to ask him where things were going. I thought if I gave him time, it would turn out the way I was hoping. So I wrote this post as a means of reflecting on some of the more general things I was feeling:
“I just finished Sense8 for the fifth time and I’m turning philosophical now. Bear with me.
A painful marriage or breakup can make one lose faith in love. My marriage and my divorce nearly suffocated mine. I loved my ex despite it all and that love did nothing to bring us together. I even think he resented my love for him and any love he felt for me (if he loved me at all) because it made him feel obliged to be with me. We’re told to fight for love, to never give up on it, to choose it above all else. But love built on pain and fear and shoulds and should nots is not a love worth fighting for.
It might seem silly to find lessons in a tv show, but if Sense8 has taught me anything it’s that love changes people, and not always for the better. Love inherently makes us vulnerable and sometimes that makes people act out of fear, out of past injuries, out of ignorance, out of selfishness. Love can often be the root of terrible choices. But this show has also taught me that vulnerability isn’t a weakness. It’s absolute strength. Vulnerability means we are open. It means we are honest about how we feel. It means we know what we want, at least in part. When two – or three or eight – people can be vulnerable in their devotion to one another, it means each and every voice is heard. Each person is given space to be, to feel, to love. It takes young, new love and plants it in a soil rich with everything needed for that love to flourish.
Vulnerability takes courage. It takes honesty. It takes faith in the power of love in a world that never seems to understand that, without love, so much in life becomes meaningless (and I don’t just mean romantic love). My marriage and my divorce tempted me to cut off all access to the romantic in me, the parts of me that have always searched for love above all things. But I realized that cutting myself off from the romantic would fundamentally alter who I am and thus completely change every other relationship I cherish. It’s one thing to decide I don’t want another romantic relationship and something else entirely to destroy a part of who I am. The former is a valid personal choice; the latter is self-mutilation.
As it happens, I do want another romantic partnership. I want commitment. Romance. Monogamy. A life partner. Even marriage. Since last September/October when I first felt like maybe I could do this love thing again, after I’d been in therapy and begun healing, I’ve learned so much about myself and about my inner strength. It’s meant I’ve lost people I care about. People I wish nothing but the best for because even though we’re not in each other’s lives anymore, and even though some of them caused me unnecessary pain, I can see that they were acting out of fear. The feeling of constantly being out of control often leads us to make selfish choices that allow us to feel in control.
I can understand and empathize. I’m stronger than I ever thought I could be and that’s why I will listen to my inner voice and stand strong in what I know to be my truths, while also choosing to still love those people and wish them well. Sometimes people are in your life to teach you something about yourself. I learned I’m quick to love and quick to trust. I hope I will always be quick to love, and I hope I will better guard my trust in the future.
I don’t know what will happen with the loves in my life right now. I don’t know how many will be here next year or the year after that. What I do know is that I am surrounded by love. I am filled with love. And I still believe in the power and the strength of choosing love.”
See, by this point I had faced some other disappointments that were hard for me to process through. My marriage was filled with rejections for years, so every rejection I faced after my divorce felt like validation of all my ex made me feel. Part of healing from abuse is learning to recognize when normal aspects of life (like disappointments in romantic relationships) highlight our pains from the abuse and trauma. Learning to be comfortable and confident on my own was a key step to that healing. It didn’t mean that I was wrong to want commitment, just that I didn’t have to wait around for it to find happiness and fulfillment in my life. It’s a lesson I’m still learning, even as I head closer to my one-year anniversary with my amazing partner.
Because here’s the truth that it took me far too long to learn: I am the only one I can ever fully count on. People come and go in our lives, even those we think we will know and love forever. I can think of three friends who have been in my life for over five years (two of those have been in my life for almost twenty years), and I know that they will be in my life forever. But aside from them, I see pretty much every other relationship as one that I could potentially lose at any time. We grow. We change. Our lives merge into and away from other people’s lives all the time. But the one person I can truly count on to always be there, is myself. Devoting time to my relationship to myself is the most important thing I can do. It ensures that I can always be my own center of happiness, while also ensuring that even with friends and romantic partners, I never lose my independence, my self-esteem, by self-worth.
What I wrote on Facebook a year ago is true, but it also points to the importance of self-love. As 2021 continues to advance out of winter and into spring, one of the seeds I want to keep nurturing is my seed of self-love. Right now, there’s blue sky out my window. My all black cat Lester is making cute mews at me. And I’m feeling full. Tremendously full. Full of life, full of love, and full of devotion to myself, to my partner, and to the people in my life. (And to my cat.) There’s so much I want from this life, and I intend to pursue it.
