i connect the phrase ‘write your story.’

i have left my heart in my hometown, on a swing set, in a pub— and i just got it back.

——-

at eighteen i entered my first version of adult love. beginning my first relationship as most young adult women do— blind.

my first boyfriend,

an alternative skater,blonde hair, vans wearing boy, with aspirations to be a DJ.

they say every love is different, and this one would be called the idea of love.

with nothing to compare myself to but relationships that were years older than mine, i saw failure between couples as the ultimate end. and through the lens of an eighteen year old— i was determined to escape that fate.

was this a reflection of misogynistic undertones society had woven into me? probably. and that the happiness of my partner equated the happiness of me— and my sacrifice meant the saving of us both.

i didn’t think life was supposed to be different, i thought success meant we both succeeded as a team— but that team looked like i was giving up all things that created an identity for myself. to be in love and to feel successful in my relationship equated sacrifice self sacrifice and i had to find a purpose in doing it. not having the knowledge or experience to understand how individuality or power exists on its own.

his pain became mine, and i saw the reasonings for why life had hurt him. like an unfair, misunderstood kid, who just needed someone to show him love, i believed that was all that he needed, that the world needed.

you don’t actually enter a relationship with the intention to fix a person as if they are broken piece of furniture and you hold a tool-belt around your waist. but you think if you love someone endlessly, and meet them in all the places they didn’t receive love, evolution will happen, and they will become their best version.

but people are their own entities.

sometimes i am angry at myself for staying and not experiencing eighteen to twenty- three. and take in what i guess i would call ‘more life.’ the constant reminder i work it is it was an experience— and i have to remind myself that was an experience.

the ending of us was growth. after five years my realization came when i saw those older dynamics for what they were. his parents were us in twenty years. his mother a martyr an endless lover to his father who was never satisfied. and i couldn’t sell my life away like that.

i was able to understand what it meant to give your all to the ideology of a self sacrificial woman, to the idea of love.

and the lesson learned; is i am nobody’s wife.

my second boyfriend,

dark hair, glasses, converse wearing, lord of the rings loving, video games playing boy,

i like to think our love transcended through something unknown. the connections; both on a macro and micro scale where in every universe left to its clues, its ties- the beauty of the sacrality. mastered and curated it thrives.

however if there is a loss of that consciousness and the inability to absorb it —isn’t sustainable.

my second love was my true love.

at twenty-four i met my second love. we were friends for a year before moving to anything romantic, the ability to be raw and vulnerable, and look at each other through the lens of two people without anything to gain. an underlying chemistry.

i found i liked that the most, a slow build without pressures.

reflecting, i think there were times we both were curious, but we both indirectly pushed and pulled, and coming from two people who exist in worlds of our own- living in that was needed.

men are driven by one thing— sex. and they assumed i, or we as women, would be flattered. i was turned off by being thrown into the arena of their game. sex was simple.

i fell in love with the intensity and the momentum of our core. we made a story. returning home is the echoed sentiment.

when we moved to romantic i didn’t think romance was meant to feel like that. or care. it had a variation of the selflessness from my previous relationship, but it didn’t come at the cost of myself. it inspired rather than drained me.

my second love was special to me. i categorize it as my true love. i describe it to be a dust particle love— my own silly theory describing soul ties. described as — when the big bang happened, when we came from dust, we are meant to find our other piece of a star, and in little ways and big ways, we are drawn by fate to that person, bc they are this microscopic part of us— and — that was mine.

days and nights feel like holidays with them. tasks like cooking dinner you want to paint and right about because there is an energy that fuels quirks and bits you can’t recreate if you tried.

however things do not always work out, those special to you break your heart. that doesn’t minimize the feelings felt, the rarity of the time etched, and the existence of what is, what was, and i am grateful it did— which for awhile it was hard to be thankful.

my conclusion on soul tie esque loves are that they need to be mastered and cared for or they are not sustainable. but if done right they are the only types we should be allowing in.

before my third boyfriend, i was searching to find a connection similar to the second. i was casually dating, hoping for that chemistry, that light.

i was heartbroken that only existence of that feeling could so brutally break my heart. but as time moves, i realize there is beauty to accept what was and let that exist. creations come from pain. my definition doesn’t come from love, and the treatment of another.

—————

my third boyfriend,

long beard, from the mountains, alcohol drinking, cowboy boot wearing, life of the party boy.

my third serious relationship was exactly what i needed at the time, and helped in a lot of ways.

in the aftermath of my second relationship i wasn’t sure i was going to feel the feelings of warmth again.

i had been going on dates and feeling the emptiness and the lackluster of not finding a connection like my second love.

feeling defeated, i took a risk on who would soon be my third love.

after seeing him at my neighborhood bar and drunkenly asking for his number, then losing it, we were able to connect and just be silly. he brought fun and excitement into my life, kindness and encouragement, support and lightheartedness and helped heal without knowing it, by simply being present.

he didn’t always understand me but he tried. i would speak in metaphors— solving philosophical equations and he would ask the right questions, want me to explain to help him understand, improve and expand.

i reflect on the last year; how life was when i was with him. i either love it or i hate it.

i’m glad i did it. it feels like a country song; living honestly in a bar in north carolina while a boy pours me a drink.

different than the other two i appreciated this love for what it was, and knew it was different than the other two before. but it was gentle, and it was simple, and didn’t come with ulterior motives or secret agendas. keeping out psychological harm and devastation.

it didn’t reach the emotional depths the second one had, and from the first relationship i learned ;i was strong and i was not muting that for another relationship again, or being a martyr.

but all things come to an end, and on my birthday of this year my third boyfriend sexually assaulted me while he believed i was unconscious. i kicked him out and broke up with him.

horror like that takes you to a darkness, and it takes active mental workouts to keep your head above water. or to know how to swim back to the top. sometimes i slip into that darkness and it is all consuming, and i find it is okay. it truthfully should be in a realm like that, but to navigate and find a way to coincide with it.

i think i learned variations of that from my previous heartbreaks, or i like to think so. how to handle the world when it doesn’t make sense.

i imagine the chaos as building blocks and every time you decide to stand firm in a horror it builds something inside you— whatever that means. preparing you for the next time.

i am now alone, at twenty- nine.

so to be alone

i connect with the phrase ‘write your story’ because i think i do have a lot to write about.

i have left my heart in my hometown, on a swing set, in a pub— and i just got it back.

being alone at twenty nine; i connect to freedom.

in-between boyfriends i searched.

i used to resent myself after every break up; wishing i had done things differently, wishing i was someone else, or was something else— spent that time utilizing space differently, but at almost thirty i am insanely happy i spent this time loving and learning different dynamics, with these different lives and stories on my shelf.

collecting muses and filling my soul with thresholds.

i am processing these new takeaways, these new lessons and attributes that make me deeply grateful.

i think when it comes to love and experience i don’t do things half heartedly, or without reflection and understanding. i have learned i can appreciate things for what they are and take pieces for the future and continue on, and at certain points continue on was not in my realm.

and one of my favorite things too, or at least what i tell myself, is no one wants to write a story about how they didn’t live whole intensely. stories are meant to be written with everything they have.