Hello Coco : A diary

Tag: personal-growth

  • the subjective dating timeline: a brain dump

    I think I’ve been playing it pretty safe with him. telling myself it’s too soon for a lot of things. he asked to get matching pajamas for photos. I thought to myself ‘that’s what serious couples do’. The first week we got back together he bought us a vacation for Mexico in January (fully refundable, but still). He asked me yesterday if I’d ever want to move in with him like he was gathering signal if I thought this relationship was going serious. a few questions came up the next day around how our animals would co-exist and what that would look like. so, he’s definitely thinking about what our life would look like if we brought it together.

    that isn’t a bad thing – at least I don’t think it is. i feel like feelings are developing quickly between us absolutely. we both acknowledged that this relationship is going very well. We enjoy a lot of the same things, have the same love languages, same values & morals, same ideal futures, we can sit in silence, i feel emotionally regulated around him, and we have really great communication around all topics especially sensitive ones like politics, religion, traumas, etc;.

    Being with him now is much different than before when I also had another relationship via a poly-dynamic. Now that we are exclusive, I get to see him wholly. He is safe, grounded, and comfortable and with that he is the most consistent, affectionate, compassionate, and loving man I know.

    the cherry on top is that we are both so wildly attracted to each other and can’t keep our hands off. we try new things, don’t hesitate to learn about each other’s bodies and what feels good…he fished my Diva ring out of my vagina yesterday after sex (got lodged and I freaked out a bit!), so i would say yeah it’s gotten pretty intimate.

    With all of these beautiful things in mind, I can’t help but to give space to the thoughts in the back of my mind – rightfully so, as I’m trying to protect myself- that Ive only known him for approximately 4.5 months.

    is that enough time to start thinking about these types of things or am I being overly cautious from my prior relationship?

    I will say that the on-set of my last relationship was much different. I remember I would do or say anything for her to like me. I tried really hard and in turn 6 years later, I had lost myself completely to the idea of what I felt I needed to be for her.

    Going into this with him, I feel drastically more confident in myself. I know myself tremendously better than when I was 24. I am 31 now. I have experienced so much and have learned what is and isn’t important to me. How i value my time, what i like to do for myself, and how to hold those boundaries. He respects that and I of course encourage him to do the same.

    There are no butterflies and intense anxiety like I had with her. With him I feel comfortable (most of the time – sometimes, he stares at me and I just don’t know what to do with that). Don’t get me wrong, I feel excitement to see him. I feel really great chemistry and connection. I just don’t feel like my nervous system pays the price for it this go-around.

    Maybe that’s why I find myself leaning into all the love he is giving me, the talks of the future, and what our lives could be like. maybe that’s why i can picture him being the father of my kids and perhaps getting married someday. I think my heart sputters thinking about it out of excitement, and fear that maybe I’m feeling too deeply too soon. That i should be acting ‘smarter’ around my feelings as to not get myself hurt.

    At this point I ask that protector/manager side of myself, ‘when is enough, enough?’ To what degree am I comfortable with you stepping back and letting chips fall where they may?

    I believe I’m doing a great job in Therapy being mindful of data points that he gives me regarding his past, his job, and lots of other things that I have never been exposed to before. He’s had a very very difficult life, filled with trauma, violence, abandonment, and heartache. In no way do these things impact our relationship negatively because he has done so much work for himself, but my heart has to ask the questions before I leap – which is what i’ve been doing lately.

    So yeah, my protectors are at play. He is making me feel so secure. how do I approach balance? how soon is too soon – is there even a timeline when it comes to these things?

    or am i just thinking way too much. I should enjoy this. eat up all this love he is giving me because it feels so fulfilling. stop questioning everything – I mean don’t stop asking questions and being curious – but give the relationships a little extra grace and optimism that all is safe. all is okay. He has not given me any indication that I am not safe and I should honor that.

    most importantly, I’ve done a lot of work over the last year learning how to trust myself all over again. I learned an incredible amount about myself, my heart, my boundaries, attachment, needs, passions, my body and sex, etc; I have done such an excellent job navigating all the people and situations in my life this past year to align with all of these factors – ensuring that they are in alignment, or if not, that I manage them.

    I have come forward to my parents on our relationship; assessing my attachment needs and applying them, I have navigated the relationship with my body – PCOs, cervical cancer cells, birth control, and what sex is supposed to feel like, and I have see people come and go as they were supposed to in the chapters of my life.

    The common theme is that I made all of this happen and I trusted myself that i was making the right choices, or the best choices with the information i had. looking back i truly don’t feel like i made any mistakes and i had my best interest in mind.

    with all of that data in mind, how can i not trust myself with this relationship? i will be okay and i won’t have any regrets because i am moving forward with full transparency, my full heart and the trust that I’ve got me.

    I’ve got me. I wouldn’t let myself compromise or hurt myself for the love of another person again because I’m not her anymore. she is a far away person that I hold dearly in my heart and that is it.

    I am a grown woman now with a voice and a strong one at that. i don’t let people tell me how to feel, how to act, how to ‘be’. i am a full person and deserve a full, whole love that emphasizes all that I am and am growing into.

    With him, I don’t feel lost in myself or in him. I am me, I am grounded, and i am whole.

    so, i’m going to let this unfold naturally without tracking ‘how long’ and more so just being mindful of how the pace feels day by day; ensuring alignment as we go.

  • Post Break-Up Cause and Effect: Where Do I Go Next?

    There’s a lot we experience when getting out of a long-term relationship. We have the lifestyle shift; not saying good morning and goodnight to the same person everyday, the silence of moving into your own place, the withdrawals from your own language and inside jokes that are no longer relevant, and the change of emergency contact information digesting that they won’t be that person for you anymore.

    You start waking up alone and feeling a sadness in your heart because things are strange and different. You haven’t gotten excited about the ‘new adventure’ yet. Eventually after nights out with friends, drinking, smoking, and all other vices, you start to enjoy coming home to yourself and living inside your own head again. You notice the milk is always in the same place in the fridge and you don’t have to load the dishwasher a specific way to avoid a debate on why the forks should be separated based on their size. You come and go as you please without needing an itinerary and being on-time. You feel relief knowing you don’t need to emotionally regulate another person when your cup is empty. You begin to feel freedom and radical acceptance to your own preferences than expecting push back.

    Then you chop off all your hair, get Lasik and throw out all your glasses that always made you self-conscious. You stop wearing sweatpants altogether, and spend some money on something you’ve always wanted or that vacation you’ve been meaning to take.

    You begin to attend dance classes because you’ve always wanted to try it and you watch and smile as it flourishes into an unexpected ritual of self-care. You begin to develop beautifully platonic connections and start to feel the light come back into your body a little more.

    After some time making these leaps you find yourself asking, ‘Why haven’t I done this sooner?’. The answers to that question causes an internal rift. How scary of you to let yourself coast for so long in discomfort and without regard to your truest wants. You must have really been struggling with your internal compass. You heal some and forgive your family as you also forgive whomever made them feel like they couldn’t exist wholly for what they are – human.

    You begin to exercise and that motivates you to eat healthier, and with all the release of happy chemicals your libido kicks up. You start to fit into your old clothes and you’re feeling more confident and fulfilled on a normal day-to-day basis. You start thinking of other avenues of health to explore like perhaps your fertility, or taking blood tests to learn more about where you can improve. You lean further into therapy, start taking the medications you need, and begin to see yourself in a different frame of mind.

    With the increase in confidence you begin to assert yourself more at work in conversations and projects that stimulate you. You start to develop more of a connection to your coworkers and build on the energy to form relationships even outside of work. Your boss is telling you that they’ve noticed your hard work and your coworker is saying, “you’re a completely different person than when we first met.”

    You pick up that writing project and remember how much you love it. With your newfound confidence, you begin a blog again (after deleting several In the past for fear of judgment). With that leap you are beaming with energy from the self expression and anonymous and honest connections.

    You start to ask yourself, “What’s next?”. Your therapist says, “Make sure you enjoy it as you go instead of leaping too quickly onward. The snowball can roll slower if you want it to.” So you did just that – you slowed it down a bit, took breaks from stimulation, and made sure you touched grass every chance you could to really process and feel it.

    You begin to reflect on the decisions you made in the past and start to question if they were the right ones. Was committing to moving back home to Ohio next year really the right decision or was I acting out of fear because I was about to terminate that long-term relationship? Was I attempting to seek comfort or acceptance from my family so that we would feel bonded in a way that perhaps I needed in that moment? They’ve always wanted you to move back and leaning in perhaps provided a dopamine hit to a bond that has always been known to be distinguished quickly – that much more addicting to receive.

    Will Ohio even provide me with a good quality of life either to the same degree or more than what you have right now? Will moving back home truly bring your avoidant family closer together or are you hoping for patterns and trends to just change now that you’ve been in therapy for so long and feel you can tackle it the challenge? Why does that fall on you again?

    Most importantly, would you really survive on only 90 days of sunshine instead of the 300 you get now? What if you compromised on visiting three times a year instead of two? Will your family and friends in Ohio understand or will they be disappointed and lash out? How could you make decisions like that in such a vulnerable space? It’s okay, you were doing the best you could. Life is messy.

    If you did stay where you are that would mean that you can feel comfortable feeling at home again – not moving into this new place & lifestyle only to leave it a year later. You can stop selling your furniture and worrying about how much to save by next March. You can be open to long-term partnerships when the feeling is right. You can stick with the same dance classes and community that you’ve spent these past four months investing in. You can watch your best friends kids grow older and give them all of your love. You can stay at the job (or not!) that is reliable and pays you enough to live in a safe neighborhood by myself – something you’d potentially giving up moving home.

    What if the biggest roll of this snowball is staying put. What if you use this time to advocate for yourself at your job to move in a different direction that feels more aligned with your long-term goals. What if you start to take these HR projects even more seriously and connect with the right people on them for the right exposure and receive mentorship. If the transition does occur, you’d want to stay longer as to hold it on your resume right?

    What if you let yourself exist as single person here and then eventually, when you’re ready, open yourself up to having a truly connected relationship with a man. A man that doesn’t come from Ohio values, politics and single-lens perspectives. Imagine you find the right person here that is emotionally grounded. A person that breaks your relationship patterns and your inner child feels safe and protected with. You are happy and fulfilled completely and then intentionally start a family like you want. A family that speaks up and forgives quickly, one that allows for physical touch and sweetness, radical acceptance and candor. And warmth.

    Lastly, you’d have to ask If your future self would be excited and proud of your decisions that you’re making now as you are of your younger self taking the big risk of coming to Colorado in the first place.

    We will never know if the decision is going to be 100% correct one until we try it. Leaning into our intuition is our best bet and staying in-tune to my intuition will be the ultimate key in determining what my next choice will look like. That intuition will change the trajectory and momentum as I keep experiecing new things around me, so I can’t truly expect to know for sure.

    And the reality is, is that the snowball never actually stops. It also didn’t just start after this breakup- it has been ongoing and constantly being reshaped into what I need in that moment and time. Last year, it was moving incredibly slow because it was so small from letting myself be small. I let time ride by high on my couch because the relationship I was in sucked everything out of me. I didn’t feel like I had autonomy and a the right words to communicate it, so I held back in fear.

    Luckily the new lease term that came up sparked enough panic attacks to give me the momentum I needed to really push everything down the hill.

    Choosing where and how it moves next in terms of where home is for me and if where I am 40 hours a week will be possibly the biggest decisions I can make after the breakup. Everything in between has been highly influential and exactly what I needed to get to this point. The community I’ve joined, the passions I’ve explored, the liberation I have with my sexuality, the reflections and immense shift in my mental health via taking the time to add value into my day-to-day – add purpose, have been the stars guiding me to regaining my sparkle once again.

    Regardless of wherever I go, whatever I do and the new things I learn, I can depend on myself now to keep myself moving forward and I can’t wait to see what I choose next.

    Home. – Where will it be?
    Denver, Ohio, or someplace new? When?

    Family. – Values and boundaries.
    Kids? Commitment?
    How much time do I need for myself first?

    Lifestyle – Day-to-day purpose & self-care
    Building attunement and trust that I’ve got me
    Weight training, nutrition, mental health accountability

    Work. – Regulated and mentally sustainable
    Recruiting or HR?

    Passions. – Continuous Self-Expression
    Blog, stories & journaling lifestyle rituals- where do I want to take these?

    Experiences. – Living outside my comfort zone
    Experiencing new dance, traveling solo & learning other cultures