Heal

You didn’t ask for it to end, but it’s over.

The plans, hopes, daydreams — the lifelines to them have all been cut. The anticipation of one day stepping together into greatness has been gutted. The safe bet, the sure thing you had with him is no more.

Sit in that reality for a while.

Allow the news to blind side you. Let yourself be combative and refuse to accept the loaded yet empty manner in which he chose to walk away. Permit the years of beautiful and bad memories to resurface from the vault.

Cry your eyes out. Drown your sorrows in whiskey and wine. But keep it together just enough to get through each workweek.

Write those petty and pain-filled journal entries when the anger is too much to contain. Recount how much you’ve invested — emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually — into this thing. Let it fuel you to later be extra careful about who and what you give your energy to.

Hope that one day he’ll realize he screwed up and find his way back to you. Pray that you’re tough enough to dismiss him and repay the hurt.

Ask God to heal your aching heart. Beg Him to help you get over this guy.

And then, just as life does, you move the fuck on.

Shed fewer tears as time passes. Dwell on what used to be a little less frequently. Love on every ounce of the melanated beauty that you are. Focus on being authentically and unapologetically you.

Chin up, Baby Girl.

WYAO April 2016This post is part of the Twenties Unscripted 10-day writing challenge, Write Your Ass Off April. Find other posts from the challenge by searching for the hashtag #WYAOApril. 

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Surrender

This wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t in my plans.

I wasn’t anticipating another dating escapade. I wasn’t preparing to give another guy a chance to come into my world.

I’d dismissed the thought of wasting time on one more silly relationship. I’d written off the fruitless pursuit of love.

My heart was guarded and damn sure comfortable in its armored enclosure. But you managed to disregard the wall and find a way in.

Vulnerability was banned from my vocabulary. But you reintroduced it with your generosity.

Falling for you wasn’t on the agenda. But you penciled it in with your intimacy.

I fought you — I fought this — out of fear every step of the way because one heartbreak was enough to last me a lifetime.

But you showed me that living in fear isn’t living at all.

So my heart is bare and my feelings are raw. Wherever this journey takes us, let it be amazing and intense and unprecedented.

I surrender.

WYAO April 2016This post is part of the Twenties Unscripted 10-day writing challenge, Write Your Ass Off April. Find other posts from the challenge by searching for the hashtag #WYAOApril. 

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I’m On MY Time, In Case Y’all Forgot

A few months have passed since my breakup and I’m becoming quite the optimistic. I relapse sometimes and struggle to let go of what was one of the most comfortable and familiar parts of my life, but the positives are constantly being revealed and I’m starting to accept them.

Although my heart and mind had me convinced, my world did not end. I believed that I wouldn’t be able to pull myself together enough to move forward. This thing put me on pause for sure, but I’m not wired to stop. There’s too much work to do. In the wise words of Big K.R.I.T.:

“Shit, I’m too fly to be touched, too hard to be crushed.”

My inner cheerleader is working overtime right now to keep me lifted, but that in no way means I’m not allowed to cry, hurt and cry some more. I’m done being hard on myself for not bouncing back as soon as I’m supposed to. I can’t keep internalizing everyone else’s expectations for my healing process.

I know my loved ones mean well when they constantly encourage me to go out and mingle and whatever else a conventional 20-something single does. But when I express my frustrations about figuring out my next move, I’m not always looking for an answer. More than likely, I just need an ear.

TimeI don’t need to be reminded of the myriad online dating sites that are jammed down everyone’s throats as a Band-Aid for the bruised and brokenhearted. I don’t need to be instructed to flock to OkCupid or Tinder or any other app to fix my “situation.” Some good, old-fashioned listening will suffice.

Not every problem has a clear-cut solution.

Society requires us to believe that single people are undesirable and should all be on a mission to be cuffed, but I don’t need to jump on the shallow validation bandwagon.

I’m on the pursuit to find and enjoy the glorious parts of single life. Like not having to give two fucks about what a person I’m romantically involved with is doing when we’re apart. Not concerning myself with another person’s problems and making them my own. Not having conniptions about calls and texts going unreturned.

I lost myself in someone else for years. To the point that living any other way was foreign to me. To the point that change was knocking but I was too resistant to let it in. It’s time to recoup my losses.

Being single has freed up so much of the time, energy and love I have to give. But before I let another guy come into my space and receive those things, they are being funneled straight to me.

And as I move on, everything I choose to do will be done on my time – not a second sooner.

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The Hardest Pill to Swallow

I decided it’s time for me to stop dismissing my feelings and wearing a straight face because, honestly, it’s exhausting having to keep it together all the time.

I need to start dealing with my heartbreak and sitting right here in my feelings. I’m human and I’m allowing myself to be just that. Walking through my hurt is the only way I can heal.

The hardest pill to swallow is realizing the one you love with every bit of your soul doesn’t really feel the same way about you.

PillI just knew I had love all figured out but everything I dreamed of having with him crumbled into pieces right in front of me and I could not prevent it. Nothing I could have said or done would have changed the outcome and that really fuels the anger and hurt I’ve been feeling. It bothers me when I’m not in control of a situation.

I was so certain that we were working toward the same goal of taking our relationship to the next level, and I was so confident that he wanted the same thing. I could not be any more mistaken. We were on two different chapters. We weren’t even in the same damn book.

That shit hurts like hell.

I have never felt heartbreak like this before. I’m forced to take things day by day, sometimes hour by hour.

I want to stay in bed all day and cry the pain away. I want to burst into tears at work while sitting in my cubicle and glaring at my desktop monitor. I want to drown my sorrows in another glass of chilled Merlot … or maybe some brown.

I am aching right now.

Everyone keeps telling me it will get better and I will look back and this will seem insignificant. That someone else will come along. I can’t even think that far ahead. Like Onika said, “When you in it you be thinking life is over!”

He was my first love, my first everything. He was supposed to be IT for me. We grew up together. We went from kids in full-blown puppy love to young adults trying to figure out our place in this world and fighting to keep our love afloat. Our lives were so entwined. We were family.

I still love him. A huge piece of me still wants to be with him. I want all of this to be some long, drawn-out, sick joke that went too far. For him to call me and say, “I messed up.”

But that’s not happening.

Life will not stop just because I have no clue where to go from here. I know I have to find a way to move forward. I haven’t the slightest idea when I will get through this, but I will.

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