I am dissatisfied with the plethora of self-help out there on moving on, letting go, feeling enough on one’s own at the precipice of love.
Shall I jump? Shall I pace back? Shall I scream for someone’s acknowledgement and have a chat whilst threatening to thrust myself forward? (Yes, Rose, I’m looking at you.)
How dreary and dramatic.
No. The only way to face my fear of death-by-love is by plunging into my deepest, non-negotiable needs. A swan-dive into my inner pool.
Which is a lot less dreary and dramatic.
I will not be somebody’s option.
I want to be somebody’s hell yeah.
I may well end up being someone’s option amongst many. Until I say ‘take me off’, and then I am their option no longer.
I choose being a No over being an option.
I don’t know why I got to option status. But I know how I got here.
I failed by changing, desiring and leaving. I failed by rebelling and questioning. Pointing, suggesting, letting loose. I failed by being exactly who I was at every point in time.
I failed. I am undressing the shame that comes with that word.
A failure is a state which does not coexist with achieving one’s goals. In this case, our goals.
I failed our friendship when I asked for a relationship. We knew it wouldn’t work.
We knew.
I failed our relationship when I didn’t leave the first time. We knew he wouldn’t make amends.
He didn’t.
I failed our post-relationship when I cut him out. We knew we couldn’t go back.
We didn’t.
Failure can be a beautiful thing. To admit to failure is to put a period at the end of the sentence. It is to start a new line and hand over the pen to the unimaginable. If I’m lucky it may even be a new chapter.
Failure is a gift from the universe, with the card saying, ‘I’ve got other plans for you.’
My plans do not include being an option.
I move through the world like a leaf traversing a forest in search for its final resting place.
I search for the gust that can take me furthest, with little consideration for the direction or force of travel. I don’t mind being stuck in bushes, getting crackled under feet, or risking decay in a dark, humid marsh.
Options and regrets float away as soon as I hop on my windy current. So how could I ride my wave with someone who needs options and regret in order to function?
Suffice it to say that we are not on the same wavelength.
I shatter under the fear of abandonment.
The second it rears its scary little head, I jump and pray the wind will take me somewhere it can’t find me.
It may not help that love has historically been correlated with emotional abandonment in my biography. Correlation in which he has not been an outlier.
To surrender to love is to say, hurt me, leave me, bury me alive. I accept all this and more to be near you one more day. I have. He has.
So, why should I spend another drop of my pumping blood thinking about him?
I become the light I see myself in.
This woman that embodies my spirit is a living goddess.
She feels ferociously.
She answers to Survivor.
She trembles with her whole body until it burns and rebirths.
She loves like the river, forever flowing.
She has no time to waste.
The second you waste her time, you waste her spirit.
This, she may forgive. But she won’t forget.
. . .
Self-help is self-surgery.
I am consciously making incisions into my heart to make her beat again. My scissors are my words. My scalpel is my rage. I am hemorrhaging love.
I pray there may be some left when I finish.
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love and is republished here with permission from the author.
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