breaking the spell

I love that my prior post was about a love spell. It truly was. I was under a fucking spell with that man. He was everything I had wanted, but it was the wrong time. he couldn’t handle conflict and having an emotional conversation and after him bailing twice, I promised myself that I will not ever let someone make me feel that way again. So, the spell has been broken. I grieved like no other for a solid month. when it happened (over text because he’s a coward), I, admittedly enough (almost embarrassingly) was…wailing in my car. So distraught and scared to not have him in my life. I was beginning to love him and picture an entire future with him. The breakup happened so suddenly as if not just one rug but an entire rug STORE got dragged out underneath me and with the WORST carpet burns.

Silly analogy, but really – I have not mourned a breakup so hard since my very first love back in college. The link though is that they never had the real opportunity to work, I just wanted it to. The breakup back then was a tox relationship, as this one was turning into one. Why do those hurt the worst? Because my anxious attachment flared so hard during the relationship and emotional validation from breadcrumbs was like a drug?

I know now that it was as if I was trying to prove to myself that he would change and work on himself only to be devastated by my own unrealistic expectations for a man that already showed me who he was. My inner self told me so, but my heart just wasn’t ready to believe it yet. The spell.

truthfully after ending this relationship, I had come to realize that my adult life has been full of spells. Loving, healing, fruitful, and sometimes devastating spells that have lasted 7 months, a year or even one 5.5 . After that epiphany another one brutally smacked me in the face. I haven’t been alone (without a romantic or sexual relationship) in probably a decade at this point. I had always dated. I believe the longest I’ve ever stayed single was 6 months and that was back in college when I got that god-awful haircut and my confidence dropped by 5000 billion percent.

It’s been 5 weeks since the breakup and i’m in a completely different, more healed spot. I’ve done a lot of ‘letter writing, but not sending’, journaling, talking about it with friends, all the normal breakup things. Then I found myself signing up for Tinder and Hinge again, not even completely sure I’m ready to dive back in.

Laying in my bed, 2 edibles deep after a beautiful day doing nothing, I come face to face with the realization that I am currently in the uncomfortable. The place people tell me to ‘feel’ and ‘sit through’. That life lessons are coming and that I will be proud one day if I choose to sit still long enough to truly process it.

The Hinge conversations and Tinder sexy talk has been filling a pocket in my heart that has always been most comfortable in being witnessed and shared with another. I have always had someone checking in and experiencing things with. To be noticed, appreciated, and thought-of.

Of course I have to ask myself, what is past the discomfort? How long will it last? What do I need to do right now to get past it?

For one, I’m beginning to realize that the scrolling, the dating apps, the chronic use of my vibrator, and the retail therapy are not letting me move on. They are keeping me in a state of cheap dopamine fog. In order to move pass this, I need to let myself move past it. As much as I hate to say it, I have to live in the quiet of my apartment. I need to feel the lonely Saturday night when my friends are busy and no one is around. The sinking feeling in my heart knowing that ‘time is ticking’, EVEN THOUGH I know I have plenty of time (it’s an internal narrative I’m trying to work through currently, but I’m giving myself some grace cause fuck it’s hard being a woman sometimes in this world.)

I see the world for what it is too. One big distraction. I’m not even talking about marketing, ADs, consumerism and such things. It’s everything. The screens, a busy work day, the news, the devastation of our world, that time is fleeting, etc; Sitting alone in silence and trying to process your internal map with all the trillion thoughts we have…that is why I believe it does take so long to begin with just to truly process and work through hard things. Mix it with your specific vices and it’s another layer on top of the dip.

So, really what are the things that I should be doing right now? How long is long enough to find comfortable in alone? “It’s subjective”. Everyone is different, but Jesus fuck can I get a guidepost outside of just journaling, exercising, and eating well?

In the metacognitive world, I just want clear cut facts and direction. I want to have realistic expectations and a game plan. Tell me what to do, tell me the phases and tell me how to sit in discomfort as comfortably as possible while still doing the work.

I’ve tried the whole deleting Instagram, the apps, putting my tv away and being intentional, going on walks, going to dance class 4x a week, working out 3x a week, eating fruits and veggies every day, drinking enough water, taking care of my hygiene and keeping up appearances for the ‘look good feel good’s.

I feel like I’m at this point where I’m ready for the real work. Give me something tangible to work with, to work on this state of loneliness and discomfort. Is it really just time?

I understand now that out of all of the spells in my life, this is the biggest one in need of breaking. Embodying ‘the self’, stepping out of loneliness and wanting to be wanted, and being okay with being on my own for a while.

I try to dream up what my future self would feel like at that point. Would she feel complete comfort and at peace? Would she have more friends to lean on? Would she step into a new comfort just physically, existing without the pursuit of being witnessed by another? Will she step into a new form of self-expression now that she is only looking to please herself and no others?

What would happen if I let myself truly heal from relationships past, looked into myself, and walked out being more at peace with where I am and proud of the intentionality behind that. She wouldn’t be lonely, she’d be energetic and electric from her friendships. She wouldn’t be scared, because she knows she has her fully and no matter what can work through anything.

She wouldn’t give her happiness a single excuse to compromise.

She’d be stronger than ever.