After spending the better part of the past two weeks trying not to write him, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
I know.
I know…
Oops.
To be fair, I was in Geneva. The last time I had walked across this airport I was flying to him and, for the first five hours spent waiting for my delayed flight to depart, I managed to keep my thoughts and emotions in check.
Then they announced it: cancelled.
One more full day waiting around at this airport. Great.
My mind was racing.
My fingers clumsily opened our old chat.
My face accidentally unlocked the ‘hidden photos’ tab to find a number of super cute pictures of him and I.
Flights are dangerous, they can unleash your deepest emotions if you get lost in the romance of clouds.
I have two travel rules:
- Calories don’t count when consumed during travel time, be it airport or in the air.
- The only time when it’s ok to open the hidden photos file is when you’re in the sky and completely disconnected from reality.
Two major lies I am happy to live with.
That’s the one time I allow myself to reminisce and loose myself in memories my inner video editor clinically stores, embellishes and packages up to be replayed in times when I feel a bit lonely or full blown depressed.
So here I was, 24 hours of travel ahead of me in the one place that triggers the strongest and most exciting memories of J.
I’ll write what I’d actually like to say and then decide if I want to send it — I thought.
My fingers, freed from the thought that I would actually send this, begun typing away:
Here I was, entering the Geneva airport and looking at the billboard. Last time I came, I was coming to you. I woke up with a kiss from you ‘in case I woke up in the middle of the night’.
Coffee at hand, feeling a little bit jittery, looking out of those big windows towards flights I knew I may never take and one which was about to leave.
Every trip is a new story, new flavors, new sound of laughter, new quirks to discover. I was certainly hoping this would be a flight that didn’t resemble many others I have taken before. It must have been your smile, or perhaps my own, which inevitably light up every time we shared little moments of life without even having met — in the shower, making coffee, or even half asleep and exhausted in a hotel.
I hate disappearing but I wasn’t sure of what to write. You didn’t even check that I got home safely after I flew to you. That doesn’t feel like the man I got to know — but of course in just a few days you never know all the facets a person holds.
I like lightness, but I like lightness with depth, with care and with consistency.
You’ve never felt careless. Not even on our first crazy call. You made me feel heard, understood and cared for. In just a few days, you made life more fun and every detail of the everyday a little more light, a little more meaningful.
In Lisbon, you made me feel like a placeholder in between your old and future life.
It made me feel naked and a bit used, disrespected both as a woman and as a person.
Perhaps I still don’t know what to say, we only met for a few days and maybe you haven’t given this a second thought but I know I’d want the respect of someone messaging back, hence with delay, here I am.
I hope your new business is going well and that you’re happy.
When I landed I sent the message to a close guy friend who said it was very well written and that my expectation from him was none at all, aka if the intent was merely to get this off my chest, I should hit send.
I knew that’s what he would say. That’s probably why I only shared it with him.
In truth, my intent was to remove this weight from my mind and also not to ghost him, because he has texted me twice since I went to Portugal and I had never responded.
I didn’t spend much time thinking about the possible replies.
My message doesn’t warrant a reply and in truth anything he does send my way cannot make a slight bit of difference in what I need to be thinking: I made a mistake, he’s not the one.
My therapist told me he’s a narcissist and even ChatGPT, who is programmed to tell you that you are right, told me that there is ‘zero chance this is my person’.
When you send a message through the Milky Way you need to know that you are in a way relinquishing control of how things will turn out.
The little power I had in this dynamics was now completely gone as I responded with a way too long thoughtful message.
However, the truth is that this message is very me.
Underneath it so many truths coexist:
- I don’t want to be rude
- I care
- I know this will likely never be
- I am a bit naive
- I’m still hoping you’ll show up big time
- You hurt me
- I have no idea why I’m sending this
- I miss you
- Was I not enough?
- I let you go
- I feel aligned to myself in being able to express what I think and feel and actually sending this instead of ghosting and creating a power dynamic I never wanted in the first place.
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!
How much therapy is too much therapy?
I have gone to therapy extensively over the past years and I help people for a living very successfully so how is it possible that I struggle to help myself this much?
J made me feel even more confused about what I want in a partner, in a man today. He truly was so in line with so much of what I wanted. How can it be that he is in fact absolutely not the one?
Why is he not running after me and most importantly, why do I even care?
That little girl inside me who is eternally looking for love, was just hoping to be held and to feel safe.
It’s time to stop repeating the same pattern
As I stare at my laptop I can’t help but wonder if I even know what it is that I am looking for after all.
After so much heartbreak and broken expectations I struggle to find that balance between too much and too little and I feel like I rarely sit in the middle.
How high should the bar be?
Am I expecting too much yet putting up with too little?
As I spent the day with a guy friend who loves me dearly yesterday and would never put me in the ‘uncertainty’ box I realize that I would like a love that feels safe, one where I am not an option, a love that once in a while can hold me up when I trip and will stick around to challenge and support me when I need it most without expecting me to have to work so damn hard for it.
When I look at the men who have loved me most, it’s the men who got to know the most unfiltered, unhinged version of me and didn’t just love me anyways, they loved me because of it.
Yes, even if I’m too stubborn, even if I can be abrasive and immersed head on in my passions, critical, self critical or a bit of a lunatic like in so many ways.
Maybe the love we’re longing for is only available when we realize that we can be loved just as we are, a little bit broken, a little bit in pain, a little bit imperfect.
Perhaps therapy doesn’t fix you —perhaps it’s there to give you the courage to show up exactly as you are.
It turns out the only way to be truly loved is to show up flawlessly imperfect. After all, we all want a partner who is one of a kind, shouldn’t we dare to be one ourselves?
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Esra Afşar On Unsplash
The post How Much Freaking Therapy Do We Need to Become Functional Humans? appeared first on The Good Men Project.
