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​http://m.huffpost.com/ca/entry/6337352

The universe consoling me

The hardest times for me is when I’m alone. When my mind wanders. When I’m not busy.

Today in the cold, it proved be hard, especially since I cut off all my distractions and isolated myself.

But in those moments where I yearned to just be back in the warmth of his arms,  I found reinforcements. 

The first was a woman I work with. It was 6pm on a Friday, no one is usually at the office.  I was making my way to a couch to sleep for half an hour when we started chatting. 

I didn’t know a thing about her bit somehow we started talking about destructive me. An hour later we were still talking. Sharing our stories with abusive men who take and give nothing. She told me how hard it was for her. Hoe much she doubted herself.  How she stayed longer than she should have. How he broke her. How he moved on. We spoke about healing. We spoke about what makes us damaged.  About how it’s so hard to face the pain because you’re so broken and how denial and staying actually feels safer. About how no one really understands how messed up you are emotionally unless they’ve been abused too. We discussed self help books and loving herself again.

When i left I still wanted to bargain with my ex. To validate me. To reassure me that i wasnt just used…. Not again.  To let me know I’m not an idiot for giving a mam everything I had, even when I had nothing and happily accepted the nothing he gave me back in return. 

Then the second reinforcement hit.

I had gone to watch a movie with a bunch of older married people.  It was about a prostitute. Her inner child wounds lead her into a life of prostitution, a cycle of self hate. And in her life, the only people who surrounded her were messed up, abusive or being abused. It was hard to watch. 

Again I found myself yearning for him, yearning for this pain to not be real. Yearning to rewind to the amazing mam he was on our weekend away.

But on my way home,  i think it hit me. I ugly cried as I drove. Remembering the pain from different stages in the relationship. 

No one broke me as he did. When he hurt me, from early in the relationship ,  it cut deep.  I’d be crying so hard that I couldn’t stop. There were three occasions where I had cut myself again, something I hadn’t done in ten years, just so i could release the emotion. So that I could sleep. There were also occasions were I was destroyed and didn’t move for days. And there were days where I’d overdose on painkillers and pills containing codeine, to make me sleep. To make the pain stop.

No one knew about this. Not in detail.  Never including his actions and how it hurt me.

And each time he came back and I ran into his arms looking for safety. 

I don’t think I’ll ever fully heal from this. I’m not being pessimistic.  When I entered the relationship, I was a happy little girl eager to love and let someone into my life. I feel ruined. Perverted. I’ve lost that little girl who believes in love and magic and happiness is no longer apart of me. I feel aged.

Im sorry that I’ve been going on about my ex. I promised to stop.  But I feel so lonely.  So alone. I’m surrounded by people I don’t want in my life.  And I let them in because I feel so alone but at the same time, i can’t handle the noise.

I know everyone is tired of me

Everyone. 

I’m tired of me. 

But this is inconceivably hard.

I feel so emotionally broken.

I tell myself over and over and over :

He doesn’t want you

He doesn’t want you

He doesn’t want you

He doesn’t.want you 

He doesn’t want you 

He doesn’t want you

Let go

Stop

But I still try

Over and over

And I keep hitting a dead wall.

And I break a little more each time 

And I get up and convince myself that I can go back 

That hes wrong

That he just can’t see how amazing we are

And I fail

And i fall

And I tell myself to stop and let go

And I repeat

He doesn’t want you

He doesn’t want you 

He doesn’t want you

And I distract myself with other people 

But as they talk I only want to talk to him

And I distract myself with hobbies

But I only want to share it with him

And he’s there if I call

He’s willing to meet if I want to

And I get excited every time

And all he says is don’t have expectations 

It’s what he said when we were courting and he didn’t want to be in a relationship. 

And I feel what he’s really saying is don’t get your hope up. I wanna shag you and leave.

And he leaves. 

Every time. 

And I fall

Emotionally dragged behind a moving car

And I slap myself and say stop it.

He doesn’t want you

Everything he does says he doesn’t want you. 

And i crawl back. 

Because for three years my home was in his arms. 

It was my comfort and my safety.

And I just wanna be home 

The real reason I stayed

I’m starting to feel like the reason I had clutched on to my ex was so that I wouldn’t feel how much pain I’d endured in the relationship.  If he was with me he could distract my from the truth. Hold me. Kiss me. Be there.  And I could push it all under the carpet and pretend it didn’t happen. 

It’s day two of zero communication… And I’m starting to feel the scars. I’m started to realise how much the relationship weighed me down this year. How hard I worked to try and make him stay.  How little he gave me.

I’ve been here many times.  But I could never leave.

Now he’s left for me… And I’m beginning to feel relieved that he did

It still hurts. I still miss him. I still think of ways to fix the relationship.  I still stare at my phone hoping he’d call.

But I know all that will fade as I begin to let go and heal. 

It’s so hard to leave what you love

It’s very rarely I’ve left things I loved. They usually left me in a puddle wondering where I went wrong.

Two years ago was the first time I decidedly chose to walk away from a place I loved. My old workplace.  

The two jobs prior to that, I left with a sense of necessity.  Things had changed.  The moments I loved no longer existed.  The people I loved had left. 

It was as if the only option was too leave.

It was still sad to go. I missed the people I left behind. I missed the parts of my work that I loved. But it felt right.

With my last job, I left at a peak. A time when I was excited. When I loved everybody and everything I did. 

I left however, out of a different necessity – fear. I was working for an ngo that was running out of funding. There were no future products in the pipeline. If they didn’t get funding I’d be retrenched.

In a city where I have no one and nothing except a cat and debt, I couldn’t afford to stay.

I took a corporate job that sold itself to be with words like bonus, permanent, pension fund and medical aid.  When you are on chronic meds, always sick and paying for your full medical aid, a 50 percent payment of it sounds like freedom. 

My old boss warned me that the corporate life would kill my soul. It did.

I was bored. Under challenged. I look back and a bit of me deeply regrets leaving. I miss my old colleagues more than i should. I yearn for them to take me back. 

It was a hard decision.  But if I stayed I probably wouldn’t have afforded to live here anymore.  I wouldn’t have been able to afford my car. Or anything.  I was living off my credit card while there. 

Thats how I feel about leaving my bf. I love him. I love talking to him. I love how he fulls my empty flat with his presence.  I love how he looks at me.  I love how he holds me. I love him he sometimes opts to do things just because I want him to. 

But at the same time, I don’t feel fulfilled. 

In love you shouldn’t use words like should, expect, need… Saying things like you should be here when I’m sick or i expect you to keep in touch with me just kills the romance.

Maybe it was a great love that ignited too fast. We both weren’t prepared. We were both still licking old wounds when we leapt off the proverbial cliff together.

A lot of harsh things have been said. Not just this week but in the years we’ve spent together.

There’s so much past, both toxic and intoxicating. 

Sometimes I think walking away is the best thing for me. Sometimes I feel that I’m walking away from something great. 

There’s a beautiful story on a podcast I listen to. It’s about the most unlikely couple. The woman describes the guy as a complete mess, as someone no one in her family accepted, nor did her friends like him. They believed they were in love. Moved together. But the move created lots of stress and depression and frustration as one person didn’t have a job and they struggled. They fought constantly. Eventually the girl moved back home, unable to find a job and make it work. A year later, her job took her back to the streets where they tried to live together. As she was strolling through, he found her.

They’re married now. They’re happier than ever. And it’s been about 7 years together… 

I don’t know. 

Decisions about love are difficult.  You know it’s not perfect but you’re not perfect either…