So I’ve been sitting on this piece for a long while, terrified to share it openly. This piece is much longer than my usual ones. It was both difficult to articulate and painful to recount. But doing so is needed. This space deserves it and so does my process. I hope you find what you need in it…

I loved someone with all of my heart and it failed spectacularly.

Not only did it fail, but throughout the entire process of loving, holding, and losing, I felt desperately not enough. I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t do enough. I didn’t try enough. I wasn’t exciting or soulful enough. My essence was…sub-par.

I know this isn’t true. Everything about this screams that this isn’t true.

But I would be lying if I said this shame didn’t seep into my cells and change my DNA. It is the constant aftertaste when I think of the past six years. It is the nasty little whisper I hear when the days are long, my energy is low, and life has hit me with a thousand little paper cuts.

But let’s start at the beginning.

Several things used to form my core belief structure: love conquering all, optimism, justice, karma, and fate. Without ever verbalizing it fully, I’ve intrinsically believed that what you put in is what you get out. And that good things come to good people. I know these beliefs have been proven wrong a million times over, but somehow, someway, I thought I’d be different. I believed that the universe would always correct itself and drown out the bad.

So when I fell in love I thought: this is what I always believed in but hadn’t yet experienced. This is a gift I couldn’t have known to even ask for. This is lightning caught in a bottle. This is love from the soul.

And it was for a long time. And in some ways, it will always be. He was my person. He was my family. Our relationship was the single most transformative, substantive, healing experience I had ever had. We laughed so hard and we reveled in the joy of our spirits connecting. So much of our personal histories were woven together, it’s hard to remember an experience without him being by my side. Sometimes all we’d have to do is look at one another and say “Adventure?!” and we were off, often in the direction of 24-hr diners that would become ‘our place’. Sometimes all we’d have to do is sit in silence, patient with each others’ hearts, minds, and bodies.

Mostly, we saved each others’ lives. In more ways than I can count. He waded into the deep, found me, and pulled me to shore. And I did the same for him.

So in short: it was deafeningly real.

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But when the seams started to come apart in our relationship, I came apart. My gift turned into this…darkness. It became such an unhealthy personal sacrifice. It became…begging to be loved like I loved; begging to be fought for like I fought. It became making myself smaller to accommodate the depths of his emotional needs. But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. He was broken and I was breaking. I was so deeply unhappy for such a long time but I couldn’t see it; couldn’t feel it. Because I was convinced that our love was stronger than the pain. I believed so powerfully in the universe correcting the bad. I believed he was my soulmate and that was all I needed to hold on to us, regardless of the emotional costs. Regardless of if I was losing parts of myself in the process.

But it wasn’t like I was on that ledge alone. Promises were made. Futures were planned. And images of dancing in our kitchen to Sound & Color as an old couple became my buoy.

When we finally tore apart and the chasm became too big, I collapsed into myself. Even though I knew how unhappy I had been before, the absence of our connection was unbearable. Watching him quickly move on with another tasted like ash. I allowed the whispers of not being enough to consume me. And they still do some days.

It is such a scary thing to question your self-worth. To turn on yourself. I didn’t understand why or how I got there. Why did I break apart like I did? I wanted to blame him for everything, but I knew there was more there. More I had to understand about myself.

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With a lot of introspection, I’ve come to understand a part of what happened.

Instead of allowing my belief structure (love conquering all, optimism, justice, karma, fate) to ebb and flow as experience necessitates, I let it anchor me; drown me. Instead of adjusting my beliefs as I grew up, I turned on myself for not living up to them. I rationalized that I must have deserved such a hollow ending. That somehow I didn’t deserve the love I had first thought was a gift. And that…that’s why I was alone now and he wasn’t.

(…God, what an awful thing to think about yourself? I blamed myself for a messed up situation, instead of blaming the situation.)

My love for him is unquestionable. Even today. But my love for myself has wavered. And that’s what I need to work on now. That’s what I need to forgive myself for. I’m working on allowing a new belief structure to take hold; one made of self-care, compassion, community organizing, courage, letting go and releasing, celebrating love in all its forms, and still…a little touch of optimism. Maybe this marks a new era of my life. They are beliefs that are better suited to who I am and who I want to be. They are beliefs that aren’t so heavy to carry as the ones before.

And maybe somewhere in this I’ll realize that I am enough. And that I did enough. And that we tried everything. I’ll realize that loving from the soul is always a gift (and lightning in a bottle), regardless of how it ends. And maybe the next time I’m confronted with heartbreak, I won’t break. Instead, I will ebb and flow.

I know that pain comes different for everyone. I know everyone has a story of shame, insecurities, and fighting the good fight yet seemingly still losing. But I hope you feel a little less alone knowing you are not the only one fighting.

Peace & love,

K