Happy motherfucking new year friends! 2 months late. Ooops!
I am sitting at a corner table at Darling Bar at 11pm writing to you with a Honey Bear on hand after a 14 hour day in the theatre. I am fuelled solely by the 4pm RedBull that I took earlier today. I hope you find this entry well.
I am writing almost two months behind and I do apologize. It feels like a week ago that it was just Christmas. Wow. That's how busy I've been.
I think it's pretty wild that this is how busy I have been and it's only been a month into the year. Is that a good thing? I'm not so sure. I don't wanna overwork myself but at the same time, I just want to continue working. Is that weird?
Perhaps that desire for work is less about having a job to do and more about my own personal journey as an individual and also as an artist. I am in my Saturn Return after all.
I just want to grow.
Should I talk about 2023? Because MY. GOODNESS.
WHAT A YEAR that was.
I will start by saying that I am extremely proud of myself for pulling it off.
I did it friends! I stayed single for an entire year. And you know what? I LOVE IT.
It's not as bad as I was dreading it to be. In fact, I kinda prefer it.
The independence. The freedom. The control.
It's liberating! The level of flexibility that being single comes with? I love it.
Upon discovering this, I will never let myself let this kind of freedom within myself to be taken for granted. I will cherish these days like my first cup of coffee in the morning.
Remember when I was writing so much about how scared I was about how lonely it was gonna get? Or how I might not ever make connections like I did with my ex?
I was so scared(that was all valid, of course) and convinced that it was the end for my heart.
I was sooooo wrong.
I'm not scared of the loneliness anymore. It has somehow become a friend that visits me every now and then. And that's okay too. When she comes around I like to blast Truth or Dare by Tyla and host a dance party in my favorite club, my bedroom.
2023 was full of beautiful moments with beautiful humans.
I am so proud of how I've come out on the other end, feeling empowered by the fact that I found my way back to me.
How did I get here you might ask...?
Let me think...
Let's go all the way from the start.
In the earlier days closer to the actual break up, I remember having very little sleep. All I did was cry and ponder what went wrong. It was tough too since me and my ex agreed to stay "friends". (We all know that gets messy. And it was for a bit).
Every time he walked through my door to leave the morning after, broke every part of me. I hated it, I hated myself and I hated him. Everything felt right in the moment before. The regret that comes after and knowing that it's never gonna be the same? I couldn't bear it.
At the time I was really adamant on honouring myself first. I remember telling myself:
"I love him, yes. But I love myself more. And I know I don't deserve this."
So I stopped seeing him. And that was really hard.
Every part of me wanted to run to him each time I was sad (which was all the time), but I knew deep down that I deserved more than the pain that seeing him would bring me.
I had to "stand on business", as the youngins in the internet would say.
And I'm so glad I did. I think it set me up towards a much better trajectory.
I made some questionable choices too, of course. Many mistakes! But I think making those choices lead me closer to the right ones. So no regrets there.
What really changed the game for me was the NO CONTACT.
I know it's hard, and trust me I know. I was there and I was the delusional one who kept making excuses to contact this guy (I think this is part of girlhood canon). I had very good reasons to contact him too! But at one moment, it just hit me.
I asked myself:
"Is this guy really worth even a bit of my energy? Is he even worth thinking about when so much of what he brings to my life is just ... pain, confusion and feeling worthless?"
The answer is obvious, right?
I promised myself in that moment, I WILL NEVER ABANDON MYSELF FOR SOME GUY.
It was a tough pill to swallow, but I felt so much freedom flow back into my life the moment I chose to just let go of these parts of him that kept interrupting my peace.
(Remember that your peace is more important than dick, OK? Seriously. Do NOT call him).
And no, I'm not saying I just wanted intimacy, not at all. What I'm saying is that proximity to your ex means proximity to being physically intimate with them. BAD IDEA. Don't do it. The emotional roller coaster is not worth it
ANYWAY. I noticed that the moment I let him go, NEW PEOPLE STARTED TO FLOW IN.
I made so many new AMAZING friends, made so many beautiful connections with strangers who eventually became good friends of mine even to this day. I feel so grateful for them. Thanks to them, I was reminded of my own light. I was able to step back into my magic and really lean into my uniqueness. I found myself thinking so many times asking "HOW DID I EVER LET A MAN MAKE ME DOUBT MYSELF and MY WORTH?". Never again.
The best part about this whole thing is that it kind of just *happens* and before you know it, you're coming home to yourself, dancing in your bedroom alone and feeling content to be in your own company. No stress, just bliss.
BUT WAIT!! This journey is not linear. Grieving is a wild ride and sometimes reality hits you in the face like a frying pan and it really fucking sucks.
Like one day you might hear that he has a new girlfriend.
6 months after your break up... he got himself a new love.
And that killed me, not gonna lie.
I remember feeling really worthless and upset at how stupid I must be for ever loving him. And yes, those feelings come up a lot. (And when they do, please be kind to yourself. To love is to be human and you are human).
To me it was so devastating since he ended up dating the very same girl he told me not to worry about. I cried, I threw some shit around, I coped with overworking myself once again. I was feeling far too much and not thinking at all. OH I WAS HURTING like HELL, and I wanted to just stop feeling everything.
It was around July when I found out. Around the same time that I caught his infidelity a year prior. It was really hard, I was sick of it.
A part of me knew there was no way I could keep running away from the pain, so I let myself go through it all. I remember distinctly walking around the city for hours looking for answers and finding none. My face glistening with the tears as they fell down my face.
I felt so robbed of the summer that I wanted to have, I eventually got angry.
Anger is an interesting feeling for me. It's something that I still have yet to work through in terms of how I manage it but I do know that for the purpose of this blog, I will say that anger became the fuel for the engine that is me moving on completely.
The amount of sadness I felt was sickening it pissed me off so much that I really said FUCK THIS SHIT I need to change this reality.
Conveniently... August was coming up which means.. so was my birthday!!!
For the past few years I've always had a sad birthday. Summer birthdays can be sad because people are usually out of town. In 2023 I said to myself,
"AIN'T NO WAY IN HELL I WAS GONNA BE SAD ON MY OWN BIRTHDAY."
So you know what I did? I celebrated all month. Yes, you read that right.
In true Leo fashion, I celebrated every single day for 31 days. I celebrated myself and all my parts. It was absolutely divine. I spent a lot of time with my friends and also alone. It changed my habits in terms of how I prioritized fun, connection and myself.
They say it takes 14 days to build a habit, so I did exactly that and more. For 31 days I dedicated my mind, body and spirit to just prioritize me. And it was from then on when I noticed a massive shift.
The fall eventually came. Life got busier and one day I just realized,
"wow, I haven't even thought about him in weeks."
When that moment came to me, I felt so much pride.
It felt so great for once, after a long time, to finally be worrying about myself and no one else. I was crying about my own personal life changes and not crying about how a man is treating me poorly. I laugh at myself now looking back. I promised myself, I will never ever cry over a man like that ever again.
The rest of 2023 panned out beautifully. I worked and travelled a lot. I partied responsibly. I made so many great memories. I felt free and I still do. And I am. I love it. I love me.
I spent a lot of time in January really thinking about what I wanna do next now that I have a better relationship with myself. And I really am proud of how far I have come. And of course, I won't lie, it gets lonely every now and then. But I think after an unintentional situationship, I realized a shallow connection for the sake of "intimacy" is not really worth my time. So I made a conscious choice to stop investing time in people who don't really wanna get to know me in a deeper level. And instead, I choose to invest in myself and the people who really value me. So far it's going great. There's definitely more to explore now but overall what I am really loving is the fact that I feel grounded. I feel focused and I feel confident. I also feel so happy. I think I'm going to be single for a little longer. Hmm. A lot longer actually.
If you are reading this and got this far, thank you for seeing me.
If you are also going through some rough times, I want you to know that you are not alone. Things will get better, and don't forget to remember who you are. You got this <3
And if you still don't believe me? Just remember the story I told you just now.
love,
H <3
