#learningtobealone

As feature in The Elephant Journal

When I said goodbye, I meant it. Even though it hurt, and part of me wanted him to ask me to stay, I knew this relationship wasn’t working. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, I did. It’s just that no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I wanted this relationship to work out, it wasn’t feeling right. I thought it was that he needed to change, he needed to step up to the plate and ask me to marry him, that he needed to fight for me.

But truthfully, I was the one who needed to change. He didn’t need to do anything, at least not for me. I didn’t see it at the time, but the reason this relationship wasn’t working was that I was unhappy with myself.

I was using the relationship as a way to complete those things I didn’t want to change. As a way to avoid the fears, the pain the ugliness I felt inside. I felt if he committed to me, married me then this deep longing self void would go away. But the more I clung to him, the more I hated myself. I displaced that hatred, and fear of change onto him. And walked away from the relationship with him.

At the time, I didn’t know it but I was really walking away with the relationship of negative self talk I had with myself. I could love him, he could love me, but I couldn’t see it because I wanted him there every moment to fill those moments when I was to scared to do things alone, to try, to grow and to put myself out there and become the independent woman I used to be.

I was using him as a crutch and when he wasn’t there to fill that void, at the exact minute it became to painful to face, he wasn’t good enough. So I was having this war that only I understood, he didn’t see it and probably at times thought it was irrational. This clinginess, but once I said goodbye, I felt this freedom.

I had this unstoppable feeling that I could do anything, go anywhere. The places and things I used to fear doing alone, I now craved to go there alone. Once I was afraid of driving at night, of going to parties alone without a date, now I went there and felt so free. I felt alive, I was so happy being single being free. I never wanted to go back to that trapped suffocating place. That relationship, where he wouldn’t come with me, or if he did I felt like I was dragging him along.

I had no worries, I had no fears. Because I didn’t have to anticipate rejection. I didn’t have to worry whether he would want to leave early. This whole world, this space, this time it was mine. And every single boundary and obstacle was removed. Who would ever want a relationship I thought this single life is so great.