On Growing Up

It's the middle of August, right smack in the middle. So, summer isn't really over, yet. But in so many ways, it feels like it is. And also, I have a LOT of online coursework to avoid right now. Its tiring, really, all this avoidance. I guess that's what led me to finally write this post, at midnight, on a Tuesday, in the middle of August.

What a whirlwind of a summer. I taught summer school, I took four online courses, I traveled, I went to weddings... I was barely home.

But I'll write about all of that stuff later.

What I really want to talk about here, is how much I have grown this summer. And it feels really strange to say that, but it is unequivocally true. It actually feels really cheesy, and I guess it is and it isn't at the same time.

Who I was last year, is nothing at all like who I am now. I have shed the old, stale parts of me that weren't working, like a snake sheds its skin. And just like a snake is still a snake afterwards, I am still myself. But I have outgrown so much that I sometimes don't even recognize who I am when I look in the mirror.

I will never understand why life insists on hitting you so hard just to get your attention, but it always does. Actually, it really doesn't have to, we just don't listen like we should. We ignore our intuition, time and again, out of fear, love, whatever. It doesn't really matter. We ignore what we know to be true so we can continue to tell ourselves the lies that allow us to sleep at night.

Mine came in the form of heartbreak. Actually, it wasn't so much heartbreak, as it was losing a game. I felt as if I had lost a game that I had been trying so hard to win for so long. I wanted this win. I needed this win. But, on a cold Sunday morning in January, I lost. I lost everything, before we even got the chance to pick up the laundry.

There was this irrational shame that came with the sense of losing. Like, maybe if I had been more strategic, practiced more, studied the rules, maybe I could have won. I wanted to know why I had lost. I wanted to analyze the tapes, go back to the playbook, find where it all went wrong. But seeing the situation as a game meant that I was forcing myself to find some sort of liability on either side, which just didn't exist.

It was never a game. It was just two people with good intentions, who at one point, had loved each other madly. Two people, who no longer loved each other. Two people who had tried to build a life that was never supposed to exist.

In this case, who was more valiant? The one who wanted to make it work, or the one who walked away?

If you haven't caught on yet, I'm thanking you for leaving.

I do, however, have an enormous amount of compassion for me, for us. It's hard to give up a life. It's hard to give up someone you love, your best friend, the person who knew you more intimately than anyone else. It's hard to give up the apartment, the inside jokes, the band t-shirts, the routines, the songs. It's hard to give up watching Jeopardy, the pictures on the fridge, cuddling, cooking dinner together, the love notes in the lunches.

It was hard to give up everything else I haven't mentioned, and all of the things I've already forgotten.

About a month after it happened, I realized that we, no I, was out of dish soap. I thought about how when I bought that dish soap, I had no idea I'd be alone by the time it was empty. How many other ordinary things outlasted the end of us? The shampoo, the conditioner, the paper towels... all of these innocent artifacts of domestic bliss, they all managed to survive that cold January day, while we didn't. They survived long enough to sit pompous and mocking in their places above the sink and in the shower. A constant reminder that the apartment was empty and they were not.

It was horrifically hard, but it was also necessary, inevitable, and right.

The love feels so big, so monumental at the time. But when it ends, you realize that a two-year love affair is barely a blip in the radar.

When it all happened, I thought I was a goner, for sure. I thought, this was it. I thought I had no one and that my days would be empty and long. But that wasn't true, not even in the slightest, not even for a moment. I was never alone, never bored, and never empty. In fact, I could barely keep up with everything going on, and all the things I wanted to do. My family, my friends, and myself were more than enough, and they alway had been.

This opened me up to some necessary knowledge, and it's not just that I don't need another person to fill me up, but that I don't want another person to fill me up.

It showed me how much I enjoy completing myself. Which also made me realize, that being complete when you enter a relationship is the most important thing you can be. Two complete people joining together add onto each other in a more beautiful, loving, and compassionate way than two incomplete people looking for their missing parts.

We did need each other, just not in the way we expected. We needed each other to learn that we cannot find our missing parts in another person.

As this summer comes to an end, I look back and I see how much I've changed. I have grown into a person that is much happier and much wiser. I recognize my own worth. I no longer second guess myself. I take more risks. I know exactly what I want. I'm incredibly proud of who I am, and everything I have to offer.

I now know that I will never need anyone ever again.

I have grown enough to see that this experience was not a waste. It was a turning point, it was a step in the journey, and it gave me some pretty damn amazing memories.

I hope it was the same for you.