Or: some musings on the things I wish I could have told myself on this morning 3 years ago.
Baby girl, you are going to be okay.
I know what you just saw. I know what you’ve been living with - the way “I love you” has started to weight like an anchor around your throat. The way you aren’t sure what is more shattered - your loss of faith in him or in yourself. I know what you refuse to admit to yourself you know. I know the bile rising in your throat as you’ve finally found it, the thing you can’t unsee, the thing that makes you look at the sleeping body next to you - the one they keep saying you’re so lucky to be with, so undeserving of - with that strange mix of unwavering love and unmitigated hatred that has come from your first love. I know he has convinced you that you are nothing without him. I know you see leaving as the ultimate failure, but - with your nose this close to the canvas, you cannot truly see the painting. What you today think is your ultimate failure is the beginning of the rest of your life. It is the most important victory you will ever have. It is the day you finally choose yourself.
It is okay to not be okay right now. No - it is crucial. You cannot heal until there is a break. You cannot rebuild until the old foundation crumbles. Until that decision is made for you, until you decide that the damage to the old is irreparable, you will not see how vital to your survival it truly is to create the new. I know you want to torture yourself with “what if”s - but what you will learn to remember is life can never be anything other than what it is.
Here’s what I know: You will be able to stomach Hollywood again. The sight of the building you spent 3 years loving him will not make your stomach turn forever. You’ll be able to see the name of his band and not flinch. You will be able to meet someone who shares his name and feel only momentary instinctive fear. He will try to come back, but only 6 months out I’m proud to tell you that you will be strong enough to deny him. You will be the one - the only one - who truly left him, and he will never forget you for that reason alone. You will be able to see him - and her - in a public setting when you didn’t expect it - and you will make me so proud with your complete lack of a public reaction. And you will cry on your friend’s shoulder after, but it will be because you were forced to witness your old “best friends” betray you with their love for him - not because of your love for him. And the next day you will wake up and you will smile because you no longer look at him and see anything special at all. You will realize who your friends truly are, and you will realize you’ve learned from him how to let go of toxic people who tell you they love you but treat you with no respect. You will begin to let those people go, and you will mourn them. But you will remember that no mourning is as painful as the mourning you once had to do for yourself. You will make new memories where you were sure the old ones would haunt you forever. In a couple of years, you will tell a psychiatrist about the relationship and the aftermath and she will offer a diagnosis - “PTSD”. It will make sense, and it will vindicate you. You will have “proof” that you were not just being dramatic. That it is not your fault you couldn’t just “get over it”. Your triggers will subside and while you may never again be who you were before him, maybe that’s for the best. Because who you used to be chose him, and you would never choose him now. Someday, the thought of lowering yourself to choosing him will make you laugh. You will look back on who you were then with love and sympathy in your heart, not the guilt, anger and self-hatred you’re feeling now. They are wrong, baby girl. You are wrong. You will see that in time. You will see that you do not have to be fully healed from what happened to be fully freed from him. You will learn that you have a choice. And I swear, you will find it in yourself to make that choice. You are still in there. I know you can’t see yourself today, but you will. He didn’t destroy you. He merely tried.
So, hurt. Cry. Scream. Make some bad decisions. Write your songs. Learn to trust yourself again. Allow yourself to mourn. It won’t last forever... nothing ever really does. The light will come back into your eyes. You are going to become more powerful, more beautiful, more formidable than any of them could possible realize. Than you could possibly realize.
It’s always darkest just before the dawn. I am proud of you, and I love you. You will make it to the dawn.
“At some point someone is going to be careless and cruel to you and I just want you to remember one thing. You are not the opinion of somebody who doesn’t know you or care about you, okay? ” Happy 27th birthday Taylor Swift! (December 13th 1989)
Day 4: spa day and Moana under the Banyon trees. (No cell phones in the spa, but that massage changed me.) Tried opa (the fish) for the first time. It was delicious.
Went to see Brother Ali and Atmosphere with my big brothers last night. Think it's the first time the three of us got to hang out since I first moved to LA. What a great first day.
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