An Open Letter

I went to a golf range today for the first time! It turns out there’s one really close to my new house, and I went with a mixture of old friends and new friends. Yesterday night I also went out clubbing, and while it wasn’t exactly the greatest experience I still went which is really nice. Today I just got home and it’s about 2 AM, because we stayed up playing board games together and it was really fun. I’ve never even been a board game person until recently and honestly I really fucking enjoy it.

I wanted to start off this post by saying at least something not about the breakup, even though it kind of is in a way. I did have a couple different moments where I essentially just broke down into tears. But also I think for the first day I woke up and my first thought was not of her. I spent a lot of time thinking about how it felt like there was two versions of her in my head. One of them was the one that was not exactly the ideal partner for me, and someone that also crossed a lot of boundaries and did a lot of hurt. That’s the version of her that I recognize is not a good relationship for me. I’m very thankful to that person for both letting me make my mistakes, showing me my struggles, and then also ultimately making the decision for me which made sure I didn’t continue to drag on the situation longer than it should have been. But there’s also the other version of her which is the one that I felt safe with, the one that I remember in my arms, and the one that I remember all of these beautiful cherished memories with. And the difficult part is reconciling with the fact that both of those people are the same. It’s weird because it feels like I can’t hold both of those truths at the same time, I can either mourn the fact that I’ve lost this innocent pure person who made me feel so incredibly safe, or I can mourn all of the bad things that happened and the incredibly difficult and painful portions of the entire process. But I can’t seem to recognize both of those at the same time in the same person. I talked with N for a while today because I think he’s a very smart person, and he gave me some interesting thoughts on it. One thing is how I can rationalize negative behavior away, but I cannot do that same thing to positive memories. There’s no justification or understanding I need to recognize how much I appreciated and really savored certain moments. I don’t need to be convinced to accept or even want those moments, because I already do inherently. And so I think the problem becomes I can intellectualize away my grief in a way, but I also cannot help but face my grief without being able to intellectualize it. And I guess what I kind of realized while driving home is that the key element I’m missing is just time. I think that’s the short answer, and the longer answer is understanding and embracing the fact that as time goes on I will recognize that my life does not necessarily get worse. There will be a lot of things that I will miss of course, but there will be a lot of things that I also do not miss. Life has a way to fill in these vacuums, and if I allow it to, it really does become something beautiful. Sometimes I just have to remind myself how it really can just be that simple. A beautiful thing about free will is the ability to just try different things with relatively no consequences. There’s no real consequence in any meaningful way to going to a new social situation, or to try to socialize in a group where I felt irrationally unsafe in. For example, I’m kind of afraid of men, and that does put me off of socialization in a couple different avenues. But today I went. And I had a great time. And maybe there’s a couple other hobbies that I’m afraid of or that I try and haven’t been crazily successful, but I can always go back and I can always do them again and I think I will be surprised with the success that I see. I think a lot about that one, of how there is a life that I’ve always wanted, and I will make it mine.