Two years in healing from heartbreak.

Two years ago, I had my heart broken. 

Eviscerated, really.

My life's trajectory entirely redirected by one swift blow. I had never been dumped, and this blindsided me. I was shocked. I was devastated. I was enraged. 

Because for the first time ever, I had committed to trying. I intended to weather the inevitable storms of romantic relationship. And we were certainly having weather. But I had meant it when I said I was in. And I trusted his word when he told me that he was as well.

One of us was not being honest. 

Historically, I’d always been the one to run. All of my prior relationships were built on foundations of feeling unworthy and fears of abandonment (though of course, they were always packaged nicely; presenting as confident, affectionate, a paradoxically cerebral emotional intelligence feigning as capability). I chose partners I knew loved me just a bit more than I them. Or maybe what’s more accurate is I chose partners who let themselves love me more than I let myself love them. I chose men that I knew wouldn't leave me.

So when things got too suffocating, too frustrating, too boring… too anything, I split. Despite knowing my partners were committed, the instinctive urge to leave rather than be left prevailed. 

To be clear, none of this was on purpose, let alone malintended. It’s only through looking at my role as the common denominator in all of my boom and bust relationships that I came to see this patterning. 

That's the thing about fear. About belief. If we’re not conscious of it, it owns us.

Prior to this relationship, the concept of staying to make it work often didn’t even occur to me. Not in any real capacity, anyway. Staying was so hard, so vulnerable. Staying and trying even more so. Because if I did, and they left, that would mean confirmation of my greatest fear (i.e., that I was inherently unlovable, therefore deserving of abandonment).

But I want a love that lasts. So I had done some (read: a lot of) healing. So with this man, I found myself in new territory. I wanted to try. I was capable of having hard conversations, admitting fault, and making concessions to save a relationship I cared about.

And it didn’t matter. Cause relationships take two. Two who want to.

So when it happened at 11 o’clock on a November Tuesday night, I was crushed. I was furious. I was undone. I felt like I was trespassing as I sobbed ugly, incredulous tears on the kitchen floor that just moments ago was ours… Eerily, devastatingly aware of the renewed solitary his-ness of the space. 

But after he packed his bag and left (evacuating for the week so I could see myself out), and after I had run out of tears for the evening, I tucked myself in. And as I did, I felt, just for a moment, the faintest flicker of excitement. Because I know that a massive undoing begins a great adventure. That if a big bang preceded the birth of our perfect Universe, then a devastating breakup will most certainly give way to a love more fulfilling, more aligned.

But I also know that we have to move towards the things we want.

So in the 754 days since, my life has become an act of devotion to the Gods of right relationship. Not just romantic ones, but all relationships. I have been painstaking in my examination of my trauma, beliefs, and relationship patterns. I have been steadfast in learning what it means to truly love another.

So I’ve been learning how to grieve. I’ve been setting boundaries and speaking deeper, more vulnerable truths. I’ve been learning what it feels like to trust, like… REALLY trust. I’ve been forgiving, releasing, and learning how to receive. I’ve been learning how to keep my heart open, even as it breaks, even as it feels like it might kill me (turns out it never does). 

I even went so far as to ask the man who broke my heart, and another ex boyfriend to write a review of my performance as a girlfriend, which opened space for validation, apologies, clarity, and closure I didn’t even realize I ached for.

All things told, it has not been pretty. But it certainly has been beautiful. 

And though I’ve remained single, I’ve dated. There have been some men. Some I met just once for coffee or a drink, a few I kept around for a handful of weeks. Some were gentle, gorgeous, and kind. Some truly insane, some all of the above. Some so much younger than their birth certificate would indicate, a few terribly boring. 

But mostly, there's been a lot of time alone. More than any period in my life. 

There’s been many silent meals, sleeping diagonal, traveling, and attending weddings by myself. There’s been fair doses of longing, of loneliness, but they’ve paled in comparison to the rich, potent medicine of solitude. The walks by the water and long drives to nowhere. The hours alone in the woods. The feeling of my energy, and mine alone, expand to claim every cozy corner of my apartment. I’d be lying if I said I don’t sometimes wonder if there’s space here for another…

Because good God, has solitude catalyzed heaps of healing.

And much contemplation.

About what it takes to love someone long term.

About what it means to take things slow.

About safety, and sex, and intimacy.

About what it means to be a good partner.

About what I want to give, and what the highest, softest expression of that looks like.

And there has been a lot of giving up thinking I have any clue about what kind of man is meant for me. 

And I don’t mean that in a throwing-the towel-in kind of way. Really, just the opposite.

What I mean is, until, maybe this very moment, I thought I knew what was best for me. I had always been a big advocate for writing “the list” - an excruciatingly detailed inventory of the partner I was looking to manifest. And while I remain open to having that exact character show up… I realize how deeply that exercise misses the mark. How it necessarily turns off the heart's scanning apparatus and relegates the search to the faculties of the mind. How dating becomes an act of cross checking a human being against a mental checklist, rather than sitting and really meeting another, and feeling how my being, my energy responds to theirs.

And that's not to say having some mental idea of physical or personality traits I desire in a partner isn’t valid, but what I am saying is I am so much less concerned about having the partner that my mind thinks it needs, and I am so much more interested in cocreating relationship with the best possible match for me in this lifetime. I think it’s likely the case that God’s got a better idea of that than I do. 

So I no longer claim to know what that looks or sounds like. I only have an idea of what it feels like. 

I know it feels soft, and safe. I know it is as thick and sweet as honey. It know it feels alive, and wild, but grounded. I know it feels old, elemental, deep, and familiar… but new. Like being seen, all the way down to the truest kernel of my essence. It feels like peace.

And I know that God will make it so overwhelmingly, abundantly obvious that I cannot possibly miss it.