Third Time’s Not The Charm
Alternate titles; Aquarius moon? Girl, you know better. // Two cancer suns? Do you have a death wish, Leslie? // Don’t have me meet your ex and then break up with me 36 hours later. Trauma, for what?
Three people, back to back. Boom, boom, boom. Three people who said empty words. I’m serious. I’m not like the others. I only want to focus on you. I mean this. I don’t say things I don’t mean. Goodnight and good morning texts and meeting your pets.
Three people who walked. Sometimes overnight. Sometimes after having me meet their friends (see; ex they are still in love with? Unclear) Sometimes 36 hours after rubbing my leg under the table and having me listen to their grandma on the phone. Sometimes 1.5 hours after suggesting we hang out that night. Sometimes exactly 7 days after saying I love you and asking me how I want to be proposed to. (I couldn’t make up a more diabolical one if I tried.)
I’m so fucking tired.
Of getting my hopes up. Of making room in my life and my heart. Of choosing softness and honesty. Of being emotionally available, present, vulnerable, of not playing games, which makes people think they don’t like me anymore because, news flash, maybe you’ve never had a healthy relationship. Of being told it’s safe, I mean what I say. Only to be dropped back into the pit.
I’m tired of crying in the shower. Going through my rolodex of sister, mom, best friend(s), trying to make sense of breaking up with me mere hours after you ask to hang out that night. Of losing my appetite. Not wanting to be alone. Having to do more goddamn mental health walks, that finally started being fun!
And most of all, I’m tired of the very specific, sharp burn in the center of my chest that says, you’re not enough and you never will be.
Yeah, I’m so tired of trying to quiet that voice (because I know it lies), and trying convince myself that it wasn’t my fault. That I wasn’t too much. That I didn’t ruin it by caring, being vulnerable, being me.
Tired.
And, while exhausted, I am still finding something deeper, somewhere, through very old and deep tears.
What this has taught me; what therapy, parts work, grief, and goddamn endurance have taught me is that these fears, the fear of abandonment, rejection, not-enoughness? They’re old, ancient. They’re really worn down into my bones. They live in my nervous system.
I grew up with an emotional void, as my therapist calls it; conditional love, not knowing if I was loved (or hell, liked) that day, good enough, or, would today be mostly pain again? Through these years I developed a very strong survival sense that if I just performed better, was better, enough, was exactly who and how they wanted me to be—I’d be loved, and they’d stay.
It doesn’t work, and abandoning myself for love is never the way.
Yes, I know that.
But still, now, when someone leaves, I feel that same grief echo down through time. It is not just this person. It is mom, dad, elementary school friends, best friends who betrayed me, men, boys, more friends, all the rest.
What I know now, that I didn’t know before excavating years of trauma, is that there’s a little girl inside me who is terrified of being alone and unlovable, and will do damn near anything she can think of to stop that “reality.” She learned that love disappears, or doesn’t come for her at all. That it’s earned through contortion and perfection. That she has to over function and be useful and just good enough to stay loved.
But I’ve spent the last few years learning how the fuck to unlearn that. I’ve gone to therapy every week. I’ve done Internal Family Systems work. I’ve confronted the lie that I am unworthy. I’ve loved myself in every action I was never shown.
But still. Rejection really hurts. It detonates this all again.
Not because I’m fragile or needy or irrational. But because for the first nearly thirty years of my life, I didn’t think I deserved love at all. I lived inside a narrative that said I was unworthy. I swallowed every crumb. I begged, sacrificed myself, let myself be used, abused, and mistreated— for affection I didn’t even believe I deserved. (Most of all, I hated myself. But we’ve written about that before).
And, now, damn, I’ve fought my way out. With sheer force of will and showing up for the past few years in small and big ways to say goddamn it, I’m really fucking amazing and loveable.
So when I open my heart; when I let someone see me, let them in—it’s not casual. It’s not a fun little experiment. It’s an act of goddamn bravery.
So when they leave? When they decide I’m not quite it, or what feels like.. Not enough for them to want to stay?
That little girl steps right up to yell loudly about all she believes again. That voice I fought to bury wakes right up—the one that screams, See? I was right all along. We aren’t loveable!"
It is so fucking cruel that one person’s silence or change of heart seems to make this all detonate again, and, that I am working on. But it, momentarily, can make me question the very self-love I clawed, broken-nailed clawed, into existence. That rejection can make me wonder if I’ve made any progress at all, or if I’m still that girl who thinks she is unlovable.
But here’s what I know—now, more than ever: That voice is not the truth. And, no, I am not still that girl. Not in the slightest (I do love her though, she’s worked overtime trying to protect me all these years.)
I know this is old pain. Old stories. Old shame. And I’ve got tools now. Community. Practice. Proof. Me. Big Me.
I may stumble—but I do not go back. I keep choosing myself. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.
Because that’s the love that saves me. Every single time. (Damn, aren’t I a badass? I’m never going to leave myself again… and that makes me so proud).
And more than that, I’m learning what I deserve. And what I won’t make excuses for any more.
I deserve someone who doesn’t run away when I am emotionally available, and who knows that that safe, available love is actually healthy.
Someone who texts me goodnight because they feel so excited/lucky/thrilled to chat with me again.
Someone who is curious about me, who lets me shine. who lights me up.
Someone who isn’t just there when it’s convenient or cute or easy.
I deserve a partner. Someone who’s there to stay.
I deserve to be met. To be chosen. Over and over and over again.
I deserve someone who believes and sees what I know about myself; that I have a huge, pure heart. That I am hilarious, and intelligent, and interesting, and really special. That those in my life are lucky to know and love me, and me them. That I’m beautiful, that I’m so, so strong. That it is a goddamn privilege to love me.
And until I find that person? I still believe it.
Even when it’s hard. Even when someone else can’t see it. Even when it feels like no one stays.
Because I stay.
I stay with me.
I stay with my tender, hurting heart, a heart people are so lucky to have the chance to be let into. And I rest in that, especially when the fear and self-blame wants to creep up.
I deeply, deeply know that my heart is one in a million. Genuine fact.
And I deserve someone who knows that too.