I said I’d be happy alone. It wasn’t ’cause I thought I’d be happy alone. It was because I thought if I loved someone and then it fell apart, I might not make it. It’s easier to be alone, because what if you learn that you need love and you don’t have it? What if you like it and lean on it? What if you shape your life around it and then it falls apart? Can you even survive that kind of pain? Losing love is like organ damage. It’s like dying. The only difference is death ends. This? It could go on forever.
Meredith Grey
I know how to be alone. I know how to make it on my own, that’s easy.
I know how to focus on myself and I know what makes me happy, when I’m alone.
I don’t want to be in love again.
And you also don’t want to be loved again.
I am scared. I am terrified of the feelings of love and being loved.
Love has or I should say, “love” has scarred me in ways that I cannot explain.
The fear of love has me in a state of complete panic and I cannot even think straight.
I look into his eyes and I can see and feel how much he cares for me.
I fight the urge to tell him just how I feel because, if he knows, if I tell him, it might be the end of me all over again.
I fought so hard to get to the place of happiness being alone.
I fought so hard to be okay and learn from my mistakes.
I don’t want to repeat the past, not with him.
I am afraid of love and I am afraid of me.
I am afraid that it’s all too late to be scared now. There is no point in being afraid when I’ve already fallen in love.
I don’t want to fall in love.
It is terrifying. I know the kind of pain that can come from something like this. I’ve been through it before. And while I’m sure I would be just fine, I do not know if I can handle the pain again.
What if I mess it up? What if I make another mistake? How will I go on if he leaves?
My heart breaks at the thought of losing love again.
But I am also crippled by the fear of loving someone and letting them love me.
A few months ago, I had envisioned what I wanted this post to be. It was going to be liberating with a dash of take that asshole.
See, a few months ago, I planned a solo trip to the beach out of spite. I booked it to spite all the men who ever said that they would take me to see the ocean.
This trip was planned out of spite and anger towards all the men who ever lead me to believe all the beautiful lies they spewed out of their mouths.
And I thank them for it.
Because while I didn’t plan the trip out of the best intentions, it turned out to be exactly what I needed for myself.
Truthfully, I don’t think I would have done it without some sort of anger driving me. Not only that, my boss was telling me I needed to go. You know it’s bad when your boss tells you that you need to take a break.
But who goes on vacation alone?
Apparently, I do.
Now, of course I was completely terrified to get on a plane and go somewhere I’d never been. I was even more scared to do it all alone.
A girl and her dream. Someone cue Miley Cyrus- The Climb.
I arrived to the busiest airport in the country, with my carry on and a prayer. A prayer that the good Lord would keep me safe and that everything would be okay.
I won’t lie, I was at the kiosk getting my boarding pass just-a-shaking in my Nike’s. Then, it was time for the traumatic part of flying out of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport—TSA.
I don’t know what it is about the TSA agents at that airport, but they always feel the need to verbally and emotionally abuse you before every flight.
I rushed through, or attempted to, but as expected I was yelled at multiple times. The process was rather quick but not painless. TSA had me shaking just a little harder after that but, I pushed on. Now, I just had to get to my gate– on the other side of the airport.
I had about an hour to kill, since I had gotten there extra early. So I decided to walk to my gate, I should have listened when they said it was a fifteen minute walk but I wasn’t about to hop on the shuttle with all those people.
I began to second guess my decision to not take the shuttle but I got to experience other people looking lost on the way to their own vacations and it calmed me. I wasn’t the only one out there winging it.
Not only that, the walked helped burn off some the anxiety I was feeling so by the time I got to my gate, I was almost calm—weird.
That was the moment it hit me. I’m actually going on vacation—to see the ocean—by myself.WOW, I was really doing it.
I laughed to myself and turned right around to go get myself some Starbucks, I was on vacation baby!
In that moment, nothing mattered and truly, since that moment I realized that nothing from the past mattered- not anymore.
Mama, I made it!
Despite all of the years of crippling anxiety, despite the need to always have someone with me, despite all the heartbreak and pain I’d been through the last few years, I was happy. I was able to do something for myself and for myself only.
And so nothing matters. I saw a quote once that said, have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing.
Which to me, means, nothing matters! The pain, the past, you can’t change it. It was what it was and now we move on because that is how life works. Things happen but dwelling on them won’t change them.
Everything will be okay because it has to be. See, I serve a merciful God who would not forsake me. So, you just have to keep going and putting your Faith in the fact that the Lord, or the universe whatever you believe in, will provide.
Faith has changed my life. God has changed my life.
Never in a million years would I have believed you a year ago if you told me I’d be living the life I am today. A year ago, nothing seemed certain. Everything I knew was shattered and I was left with fragments of who I was.
Then over the last year, I’d been trying to glue the fragments back together but it was no use. It was no use trying to get back to the girl of the past, she was gone.
From the moment I bought the plane tickets, the rebirth of who I am began and I didn’t even know it. The closer I got to departure day the more I realized that this post wouldn’t be out of spite anymore. Because my story isn’t about all the men who hurt me, quiet frankly, I don’t give a damn about them or the pain they’ve caused me anymore.
I simply wanted to take care of me and in that moment, I put the hurt down. It had been long over due for me to stop carrying it around like a badge of honor, but everyone has their own journey.
Truly, I know that this is only the beginning and that I won’t feel this at peace every day but I do know that everything will be okay at some point.
The thing is, I may or may not have fallen in love over that weekend.
I found peace. I found paradise. I found a place that felt like home.
I found everything I’d been looking for and so much more.
The best part was that I fell in love with… me.
As cheesy as it sounds, it is true.
I fell in love with every part of who I am.
A sentence I didn’t believe would ever come from me.
I really love who I am and I cannot wait to see who I will become.
What is happiness? How do you know when you’re truly happy? The answers to these questions are all subjective. What makes one person happy doesn’t make every one happy.
Life is subjective.
It took me a long time to come to that realization.
I used to feel so unfulfilled in with my life for one reason or another. There was always something that was missing and I could never put my finger on it. It’s been almost a year now that I have been single. I’ve had a year filled with living with friends, dating, slipping back into an ex and I’ve been completely alone.
Before I was completely alone, loneliness seemed picturesque to me. I had never experienced truly being alone. I craved it and I believed that it was the place where I would find my happiness.
Being alone, at first, was the most difficult experience that I had experienced to date. I had this perfect picture painted in my mind of how great it would be to be with just me. I hadn’t realized how much work I needed to put into myself. I hadn’t realized how much work it was going to take to build my happy picturesque life.
In that process, I realized why it was that I felt unfulfilled with my life. I realized that happiness is subjective. I was always so busy looking at the way other’s lived their lives. I was too busy looking at what I lacked from their life. I looked at other’s lives and thought that mine was supposed to be that way.
I was always so busy trying to make my life like someone else’s. Never realizing that that is where my unhappiness came from.
The work to get to happy has been nothing less than difficult. The hard days made me feel like I would never be happy again. The good days didn’t come for a really long time.
I sit here today realizing that I have achieved the happiness I have been looking for for so long. As I sit here smiling and basking in my own happiness, I realize that I’ve made it.
I’ve made it to the place in my life that I’ve wanted for so so long.
I’ve made it to a place where I am letting myself be the main character in my life. I’m letting my life unfold. I am finally living for me and living my life the way I want to.
I’ve found the source of peace and serenity within myself and I can’t believe that I get to live the life I’ve always dreamed of.
At times I felt I wasn’t strong enough. At times I thought I’d never get here. And although I know that there will be times where it isn’t a blissful and there will be hard days, I’m learning to bask in the now. Appreciating every little moment of happiness to the fullest.
To anyone struggling through the hard days, it does get better. Although it seems that the sadness will never end, it does at some point. And I know it isn’t what you want to hear but it is the truth.
Live your life for you, after all, you are the main character in your life.
The energy exchange between us, it’s never been equal give and take.
You dump your sadness and pain onto me without questioning if I can handle it.
Your pain and your demons envelope me and suddenly now I’m the one who’s suffocating.
It’s selfish.
But you’ve always been selfish when it comes to me.
I breathe light into you and wrap you in unconditional love. I let you take whatever you need from me.
Even if it’s the last ray of light I have left.
Your pain and your demons surround me now. I feel them but they’re not my own and yet, I’m left to deal with your pain once again.
Now, I’m drowning but there’s no one to save me, but me.
You take and you take but why not take when I give it to you for free.
My heartbreaks but I know it’s not my own heart that is breaking.
Truthfully, I can feel the battle inside me. Your demons trying to swallow my light and it’s a never ending battle.
Some days it feels like I’m losing to them and suddenly I want to let myself drown. I want to submerge myself into them because they’re all I have left of you.
But why drown for someone who is long gone? Why submit to your pain when it leads to no where?
It’s still something from you. Something you gave me to me in a selfish and destructive way but from you nonetheless.
Loving you has been my downfall.
Loving you has made me cold.
Loving you has made me strong.
Loving you was my choice, a choice I’ve made to my own detriment.
I’m tired of loving you.
I’m tired of picking myself up every time you decide to leave me for dead. I’m tired of being your emotional dumpster.
It’s time to let you go.
It’s time to stop loving you.
I don’t know how but somehow, I know I’ll get there.
Elle Out Loud 