An Open Letter

Hey me! This is a little bit different than what I've been doing for the last few weeks, but here is me journaling as I go on a walk outside of my work again. I’ve slept really well the last three nights in a row and I’ve been able to exercise pretty well, and I have had a pretty good amount of social interaction. I’ve also been eating relatively well, and so it kind of sucks that I don’t necessarily feel the greatest. I don’t think I would say that I’m depressed right now but it is a little bit adjacent to that. There’s a very small dull pain in my chest but it’s enough to make it where it feels like I am slightly less than neutral meaning I have a little bit of that anxiety of this feeling not going away.

Going on a walk specifically on this route reminds me a lot of when I first went through my break up and additionally I also saw a Mazda which was something that reminded me of her. Thankfully time does heal a lot, as I don’t really think of her much anymore, and when she does pop up in someway or another it’s something that doesn’t hurt and I can acknowledge the thought goes away just as quick as it came. And I am happy that I feel like I found a friend group that I can text and do stuff with, but then I feel a little bit scared about the fact that I have done the things and filled the niches I thought I was missing and here I am still not necessarily content with my life. And I think the scary part is losing what seems like a solution or control over a problem, and realizing that it’s not that simple.

One of the things that comes to mind if I try to triage what is causing this could be my relationship status. And I will say that I am very grateful that it feels like I’m a different person and I have grown because I have had essentially two relationship prospects that I am content to walk away from because I can recognize that there are certain things that matter to me very much. Especially communication and conflict resolution. I’m very happy that I have started to read the book nonviolent communication because I think that really did help me recognize things I wasn’t aware of before. I did pride myself on communication before and now this only makes it so much better. And additionally I do think that communication is a skill that is severely neglected, and often is the thing that is now a dealbreaker to me. And I remember that an earlier version of myself viewed the problem as a certain emotional skills are something that are very rare, and so the optimization objective is finding someone on the higher ends of the distribution. I think currently it has shifted more to something like finding someone that meets my criteria, regardless of how many people will reach that or how reasonable even that is. And I think the fundamental change that has enabled this is the fact that outside of sex and maybe physical intimacy, I am able to satisfy all of my other niches in life. Meaning I don’t need a partner and because of that I am completely content with the possibility of not having a partner for the foreseeable future. And I know that it is a very cliché thing to say that, but I think in the past I have said that I don’t need a partner but that means that I really do want one though. It’s like saying that I don’t need a car to get to work because I could always walk for four hours, but I very much want a car. But right now I don’t feel like I have any of those heavily burning wants, especially proven by the fact that the current relationship prospects I am content not pursuing them. One thing my therapist pointed out with how one of the people is essentially a much better fit and overall healthier partner than E was, but even with that and knowing that if I was to engage in the relationship it would be essentially better than my last one, I still do not want to pursue it. To me I think that that is a very solid signal for growth, and I’m very proud of myself for that. And I think the thing that I’m very proud of is the fact that this is not a conscious decision that I have to make but rather something where I understand that this person is not at all a bad person, and there are a lot of very admirable qualities about her, but there also are certain things that I don’t see them that I would like to see in my lifelong partner. Like it is a very important thing to me that my partner is able to handle criticisms and take accountability without excuses or defenses, but rather with empathy and curiosity. And I don’t think that this is at all common and it’s a very rare thing, and it’s not that someone is a bad person or shitty communicator if they don’t do those things, but for me I think I’ve learned that that is something that I really really value and for my specific childhood that makes it matter so much more. And I think that I am really growing to fill the cracks at my childhood left me with. And that is something I’m very grateful for.