one taught me...

When I love, I love with everything I have - I love hard, I center my attention around that one person, it consumes me. It sounds good (at least in my head) but it’s not healthy, especially if the other person isn’t loving as hard. You’ve put all your eggs in one basket and then when that basket decides it’s not strong enough to carry your eggs, you are left empty. 

As dramatic as it sounds, the worst pain I’ve ever had is a broken heart. When it happens I sit and I pick myself apart. What’s wrong with me? How could I have been better? Did I miss something? Why have I failed? It eats at me like a cancer, it makes me do and say crazy things. I become so incredibly weak or at least that’s how it feels.

I read the other day “it’s called a break up because it was broken” and in all my cases, this was correct. But I was always determined to somehow make it work, even if it meant making myself unhappy or enduring some type of pain. 

I’ve been cheated on twice in my life. The first time I was a sophomore in college, I left a party early but my boyfriend stayed. When I went back a few hours to check on him, I found him having sex with one of my co-workers. I stood there in shock and walked home crying.  Later that night when he came home, he spit in my face while I was on the phone with my mom.  The second time it was a boyfriend who had started a relationship with one of his coworkers. This time there were children involved, I found out the day we were to leave on our family summer vacation. I begged him not to talk to her while we were with our family and he promised. The last day of vacation I couldn’t resist looking through his phone and he had been talking to her the whole time and planning to meet with her when we returned home. Heartbroken is an understatement, I would have rather been hit by a car.

Both times I was cheated on, I blamed myself. I apologized for not being what they needed and that’s why they had to run to another. I made promises that I would be better and try harder.  It wasn’t their fault it was mine for lacking something they needed. Of course you can still work down the hall from the other woman. Now obviously, this doesn’t work for anyone but I tried still. I bought my college boyfriend a bunch of CD’s when I found out he cheated and the other boyfriend got tickets to see his favorite band when he cheated. I got something too, emptier and emptier. 

I trust too much, I trust that when people make a promise they will keep it. I trust that when people say they will do something, they plan on doing it. Sometimes people lie, I’m one of those people. I most recently lied to my ex about attending therapy because I so desperately wanted him to care and want me back, even after being the one to end it. I lied because I wanted attention, in retrospect it sounds so childish and I hate myself for it. We weren’t healthy together for multiple reasons and I want him to thrive but I also have to stop telling myself that I was the problem, that something was wrong with me and that’s why I was cheated on and lied to.

Mornings are the worst - waking up usually starts with me vomiting or dry heaving if I haven’t eaten in days.  My chest feels like I have a knife stuck in it. I hold my breath and clench my jaws. I try to relax but it’s like my anxiety is so intense it takes over - I have no control and it’s this vicious cycle. If my children are home I feel like I at least have a purpose and it makes it easier to get up. When they are gone, it’s so incredibly difficult.  

I just want to feel better and whole. I know they say time heals all but right now I feel like I’m drowning. I have amazing friends who have been my cocoon for this process.  One described love as a drug, I’m going through withdrawal right now and it fucking sucks. I cry regularly - sometimes in front of everyone, sometimes in the bathroom at work, sometimes in the Meijer parking lot on the phone with my sister, sometimes in bed alone. 

I wish I didn’t feel so deeply.

I know I’ll survive this. I know everyone goes through breakups and it’s hard. But for a moment you feel like you are the only person in the world enduring pain. That it doesn’t matter how many people love you and want you to be happy because the one person who you wanted to did not. You feel like you may be alone for eternity and you may as well start accepting that now.  You feel like you’d rather be dead then have to endure another day of this intense, soul-crushing, deep pain.

But that’s the anxiety and depression talking.

I’m a good person. I’m a good mother and a better mother for taking my children out of a situation that they were hurting in.  I still care deeply for people and that’s not a bad thing but I have to learn to care deeply for myself.  I have to be proud of what I’ve done in life because I’ve done a lot and the majority of it was on my own.  I have to make space for the right people to enter my life but not have it be my focus.  I have to learn if I’m not getting the love back that I’m putting out that it’s not fair to me and even worse if I voice it and am shamed for it, it’s unhealthy. 

And this time it’s different from college, this time six little eyes are watching me.  I’ve been honest with my children about my relationships, my depression and anxiety and I think they are as amazing as they are because of that.  I told them about the cheating and they saw the hurt and then they watched me welcome that person back into our lives and watched me get hurt again.  I never want my daughter to go through that and I don’t want my sons to think that’s how you treat people.

My exes are not horrible people and this isn’t a way of revenge or to bash - this is for me to heal and to hold myself accountable. I still have love in me for them but I think it’s a different type of love than you should feel for a partner.  I think I started out in love with the person but overtime fell in love with the idea or the potential.  I want the best for them but we just couldn’t achieve that together.  I have goals and projects that I’ve let fall because I was investing every bit of myself in people who at that point in their life weren’t ready to invest it back. But we all deserve to love and be loved and most of all be happy.

So, now to Ariana Grande and how she saved this Indie-loving, 35 year old mom of 3. About a week after my break up, when I was laying in bed surrounded by tissues, I saw that she and her song - that she had just released was trending on Twitter.  So randomly and out of character, I gave it a listen. I’ve listened to the song “thank u, next” on average 5x a day since it’s been released and I credit it for me not going into a deep deep depression. To sum it up the song is basically her thanking her exes because of what they have taught her. In the second verse she talks about the new relationship she’s in and that it will last and reveals that the relationship she is in is with her self. I usually dive deep into some Elliott Smith or Nick Drake when I’m sad which I’m learning is also very unhealthy. So I decided to try my hand at some more uplifting tunes. My favorite line from the song is...

“I’ve learned from the pain

I’ve turned out amazing.”

I will learn from this. I will take something so sad that has broken my heart and I will come back better. I will put myself in the position to be loved again by learning how to love myself.  I will slowly start finding myself again and putting good energy into myself. I will not wait on someone else to validate what I want from life.

I’m capable and worthy of being loved and this is a mountain that I will look back on in the future and be proud of myself for climbing. I just have to be focused. I just have to be strong. And right now, I just have to get out of bed and make my kids breakfast before I go to the gym.

thank u, next.