I used you to lose me.
So I’m on the tail-end of my break-up feels. I’m so ready to be re-emerging into the light. It was a long dark winter.
I have learned so much about myself from this break-up though, like I am attached to distant men because in my mind, distant means I won’t have to worry about them as much. That turned out not to be the case, so now that I know that that is a fallacy, I won’t let myself date those people again. With all of these lessons about myself have come many moments of regret about things that happened while I was using you to hide myself.
Yesterday I had to be reminded of a crush I had once. I remember, now, being very aware of this crush throughout my senior year of college and having multiple awkward drunken encounters where I was ecstatic to see this person. Eventually we had an awkward falling out as I began to shove my emotions so deep into my “shield” I could no longer see or feel what I, now, remember was clearly there. Later what I intended to be my last conversation was a vicious argument with this person. It hurts my soul, in retrospect, to think that I have all these negative memories now just because I was too weak to stand alone.
This isn’t the first time that parts of myself have been erased. I once completely forgot seeing a crush at a festival and in his presence, months later, acted shocked to hear he had been there and then had my roommate interject, “you know here was there. You text me. I remember.” As soon as she said it, I did remember. I even remember walking off to text her. Why was that memory gone?
I don’t want to get lost again. I’m so terrified to get lost. I occasionally have moments of little to no logic where I think “never again.” Never again will I let a partner move in with me. Never again will I let a partner have a key to my car. Never again will I let a partner have a key to my place. Never again will I spend holidays with another person’s family. Never again.
I know these thoughts are just a natural reaction to the shock of losing three years worth of friendships and security, but I don’t like who I am in relationships. I know many women who I think would say the same thing about themselves. What is it about the structure of monogamous relationships that make us all go mad? Wives crying over their husband’s schedules or communication patterns. Girlfriends insisting that their boyfriend’s are misbehaving (I did it once too, no judgement). We all lose it. We lose ourselves. I don’t want to lose myself again. What is the secret to not losing yourself inside another person?
Maybe after I know that I’ll try to love again. Until then, I’ll continue trying to figure out what I’m suppose to like since distant men are not as pleasurable as I previously thought.
