Meggy Grace

I want to be done with dating apps. I want to be done going out. I want to be done going on not-so-great dates. I want to be done hoping I’ll find someone out of the blue, as if life were some stupid romcom. “We ran into each other – quite literally. It was early morning and as I was walking into my favorite local coffee shop, he was walking out and SMACK – it was instant love”. Yeah. Right. That’s unrealistic… you know it, I know it, we all know it and yet isn’t it all what we secretly want? The perfect person to essentially fall out of the sky? Then again, maybe not. I don’t actually know what everyone else wants. I get that everyone has different end goals in this life, some want the high paying career, some want the mansion in Calabasas with six poodles, some want to travel the world and do big things. All of those goals are awesome, they’re great and there are things about all of them that I can appreciate (maybe I’ll pass on the six poodles though) but what I want most is simple. What I want most is a little family of my own. I don’t need the extravagant lifestyle or anything lavish. I just want a husband I love wholeheartedly who loves me just as much back, children I can raise as lovingly as my parents raised me, and maybe throw in a tiny garden for my sunflowers and vegetables.

This post really doesn’t have a point but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve been asked so many times:

               “What are you going to do with the rest of your life?”

               “What is most important to you?”

               “What makes you happy?”

Well. It’s been thirteen days since I last wrote and exactly three weeks since things ended with He Who Shall Not Be Named - but who’s counting (me, just now, but only for thematic effect I swear). Truthfully, I didn’t really know how long it had been. There are moments where it feels like it was years ago but there are other moments where it feels like it just happened, like I’d just received that “yeah, probably not” text* again. It’s weird for me, to go from being so sure someone was going to be in my life to having no connection to them at all and sometimes it really just feels like a figment of my imagination. No, it hasn’t been easy but I can say now that I’m okay. I couldn’t say that the last time I wrote.

I think the biggest piece of advice that really helped me through this whole “heartbreak” situation was something I heard from Matthew Hussey – the love doctor himself. He said that whether your goal in the end was to get your significant other back or to just get over them entirely, the two paths were the same. At first I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I thought, okay, maybe there’s a chance to fix this, maybe if I do this or that things will change and everything will be mended. But another part of me was trying to be realistic with myself – you don’t want someone who’s willing to throw away plans and a genuine connection on a whim, you don’t want someone who doesn’t care that he’s hurt you, you don’t want someone that makes you feel insignificant and small. I don’t. I don’t want that. Matthew Hussey’s advice was to cut all ties – a no contact period, if you will. Whether you want him back or you want to get over him, you have to stop talking to him for a certain period of time - enough time for him to miss you or enough time for you to stop missing him. Which is what I did and what I came to realize is that I don’t miss him as much as I thought I would. Don’t get me wrong, at first it was extremely hard, like an addict cutting off their supply but over a few days I started feeling stronger.

I am now in a place where I’m doing well. I know that he wasn’t the one for me. I know it wasn’t kismet like I’d previously thought. There are times when I miss certain things about him but I know I’ll find someone better suited for me.  I’m letting go a little more each and every day and I’ve been bettering myself along the way. So, what I’m trying to say is, everything is going to be okay. I truly thought my life was in shambles, I felt so incredibly lost and alone and just three short weeks later and I’m able to say I’m okay. So as frustrating as the saying goes, time really does heal everything. And please, please, don’t perpetuate your heartache by reaching out to the person who caused it in the first place.

I must admit, I’m no expert in being heartbroken. It’s been roughly two years since my last real relationship, sure I’ve dated (quite a bit, especially at the age of 23) but nothing stuck. I was starting to think I was never going to feel anything real again, that my ex boyfriend Matt had sucked all of the love out of me, that I was too picky, that I had gotten completely stuck in my passivity and there wasn’t a way out. And then I met him. And he checked all of the little boxes I’d had in my head (and there were plenty of them). We talked about everything from marriage and kids to my biggest fears and secrets. I opened up and was vulnerable (which believe me, I never do). When it comes to relationships and, really, almost everything in life I’m pretty rational but I allowed myself to become excited about a future with him. After all, he was the first man I could 100% see an actual forever with. It was premature, I see that now, but I didn’t then. He ended things so abruptly and with feeble explanation. And he didn’t care. That’s the hardest part. It’s like he wasn’t affected by it at all, like everything we’d talked about was nothing, like all of our plans were a joke to him. 

I denied it at first, I wasn’t heartbroken, I couldn’t be. I didn’t love him. Did I? I still don’t know. If nothing else, I was at least very in love with the idea of him. Whatever this soul crushing, all consuming hurt was, it was something I’d only felt maybe once before (many years ago). I spent so much time thinking about things I could have done differently, looking up Ted Talks on how to get over pain like this, crying (both at home and in public, embarrassingly), and waking up hyperventilating in the middle of the night because he was completely gone. How do you go from talking to someone all day every day for months to radio silence. How? In my research on “how to heal a broken heart” I read over and over again that when you feel a true connection to someone and suddenly they’re gone, your brain reacts the same way in which an addict who quits cold-turkey‘s does. Makes sense. 

It’s been a week since this abrupt ending occurred and I’m still not really okay. I will be, I know, time heals everything. But just how much time? He didn’t need any apparently. Whatever.

I’m trying to see some silver lining out of this but it’s hard.

I had a college economics professor who said, “As crazy as it sounds, war is great for the economy.” And in a way, I sort of feel that’s the same for heartbreak. Yes, war is horrible and horrific for the people going through it but it stimulates the economy by increasing production and putting people to work. Yeah, my heartache is terrible but at the same time I’ve been forced to focus on myself - I’ve been working through some of my insecurities, I’ve been eating so much better (mostly because hurting this bad makes everything taste like dust), I’ve spent remotely no money, I’ve been going to the gym for at least two hours every day, I’ve been concentrating on school and work and important things that I brushed off a little before.

Just a heads up, this is a mishmash of some random thoughts I’ve been having lately, mostly having to do with who I am as a human, feeling misunderstood, and feeling like I have to apologize for who I am. Because I’m just writing to get my feelings out, there may be some choppiness to this post. Okay, you may continue.

I am no one but myself. No one is me and I am certainly not anyone else.

Wow, Meggy - what a truly profound thought, such wisdom. Sometimes though, I really need to remind myself of that. I often catch myself thinking things like - “why aren‘t you better at this and that“, “why do you feel uncomfortable while everyone else seems to be enjoying themselves”, “why aren’t you more fun”, “why don’t you smile as much as he/she does“. I need to be telling myself, “because you’re better at other things, your talents lie elsewhere”, “because you’re very situationally aware, you’re a thinker”, “you may not be as loud or as outgoing as everyone else but you’re still fun and don’t discount the fact that you’re incredibly reliable and loyal”, “because constantly smiling is not your thing and frankly, it causes wrinkles”. So there. I’m not sorry.

I often feel overshadowed by louder personalities and I really hate that feeling because I know I have a lot to offer. It’s just difficult for us introverts to stand out in a world built for extroverts. Just so we’re clear, extroverts are no better than us introverts and I’m tired of feeling like I have to apologize for being the reserved human being I am. I’m not sorry I don’t feel the need to laugh at your sleazy pickup line (ex: “I’m not drunk, I’m just intoxicated by you”) or humor your creepy remarks (ex: “how did you bite into that lime so adorably”) or treat you like royalty when you treat me like shit (ex: the entire field of retail). I’m not sorry for not wanting to offer up information about myself. And I’m certainly not sorry for cutting out people who offer nothing to my life.

It is what it is and I am who I am. Of course there are things I’d like to change about myself – my bouts of negativity, my habit of putting off important things because they give me anxiety, things like that. But I also realize that those things make me who I am. And I’m not a bad person. In fact, I have a lot of things I love about myself including, but not limited to:

 -          My profundity, my depth emotionally

-          My decision making quality

-          My honesty, albeit sometimes brutal

-          My fascination for history and lust for knowledge

-          My command and strength

-          My creativity and propensity to make things better

-          My ability to get down to Mambo Italiano just as much as I do to Bodak Yellow

And I’m not sorry for any of it. In fact, you’re welcome.