emptying out
I love to write, so dearly. It’s such an outlet for me, where my thoughts, ideas, emotions, and beliefs somehow just flow in unison without much effort from my mind. It just comes out, like a water running down a stream.
Except, of course, how inconsistent the flow can be.
I think this is in part related to how writing, in and of itself, is an inconsistent practice. Anything creative is. That juicy inspiriting and fire, within, that is insisting on being released is simply not there all the time. It ebbs and flows.
But… I’ve also come to realize that I have a bad habit of choosing to give up my voice, too.
I have this one relationship from my 20s that I never talk about, I choose to never think about, because it feels me with so much shame and a deeply rooted sense of rejection, that it can honestly get too difficult to breathe if I ponder on it for too long. Yet, it haunts me. With every failure relationship I’ve had since (and, granted, I’ve made no space in my life for anything other than a Lover to develop), the deep rejection of my first “love” haunts me. His words. his avoidance, his disinterest in my person, his annoyance and gaslighting of my emotions… no matter how many years go by, the echos still permeate the hallways of my mind….
However, I am blessed with the wisdom of his true character after we broke up, that helped give me so much more clarity…
In the end, he was not a kind man, at least when you get to underneath it all. Always superficially kind, and nurturing, but there was this… absence.. there. This commitment to convenience. And I was anything but that. When we broke up, on what I believed were cordial terms, I was essentially evicted from our shared apartment (without him present, just my stuff ripped from the closet, room, bathroom, living area, and thrown in a pile in the center of the apartment), I lost almost all shared friends due to a smeared reputation (which I helped write, myself…), and he took away access to Sully, the labradoodle that we shared since he was a new puppy, because “he wasn’t ever your dog”.
This was 5 years ago, now. The way that he made me feel like I was loosing my mind…. my ability to remain in reality without screaming…. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully grasp what the true reality of that situation was…
Now, I am an energetic powerhouse of an individual. And you can hear, if you listen closely, the sounds of a little girl trapped in her own cycles of victimhood… trying to viciously claw her way out of a box that feels made of metal…
I gave up my voice, my individuality, and eventually, my sanity, in that relationship because I wanted to. I did not want to be Emily. I wanted to be someone who was kind, small, unassuming, a giant support system for my partner, someone who didn’t exist outside of them. And, to be honest, that was also what this Ex wanted. That was the way I approached our relationship when it began: little anorexic Emily, fresh out of college, fresh out of a toxic “college relationship” fueled by drinking and festivals, someone looking to numb out in partying, music, and being taken care of. I signed on to be that girl, and that was the girl that he fell in love with.
Him falling out of love with my true essence violently leaking out was expected.
For me, the anorexia never stuck. The bulimia was a nice supplemental, maybe even the core disorder. And I had bad tonsils, I was sick all the time. so I certainly wasn’t vocalizing my intensity for the first could years….. until I got them removed, healed up, and I wanted our life to be more than whatever path of mediocrity he was pursing.
See, I’m an ambitious woman. A full-time dreamer, and an obsessive executer, of those dreams. Living a small life an outskirts suburb of Los Angeles only made sense for me while I was sick; once I was healed, once my immune system didn’t constantly fail me, I grew restless.
My Ex was the opposite; while he was also a full-time dreamer, I don’t think he has an ambition bone in his body. He was very comfortable coasting through life, fully funded by his wealthy upbringing. He didn’t mind allowing others to pay for his dreams, or allowing others to design their goals and ambitions to also include taking care of him in the future.
And I felt trapped… completely suffocated by his lack of movement in life.
In my wisdom, now, I truly wish we had broken up around this time, around this realization…. Because it was who I became, after… it was the emotional upheaval I amplified within the context.. that fills me with deep shame and regret. It’s what has fueled my lack of investment in others, my chosen distance from allowing people too close….
Healing comes in waves, in rotating cycles. So, even as I write out my failures, even as I put to words what I have refused to put to words, and publicly (at least on my blog LOL) since the end of this relationship, the release of the words helps me see that I’m not imprisoned, there, anymore.
We broke up mid-year in 2020, so by December of 2020, I had lost everything, even the high paying Data Science job I had in San Francisco that empowered me to leave (slash him finally kick me to the curb…). I also had a falling out/betrayal with my family on Christmas the permanently changed my life, forever. I was absolutely terrified, still in debt, and without any idea of how I was going to fund my life on my own, without allies. It was one of the heaviest, lowest, moments of my life.
But, I endured, and I persevered. Within a few short weeks, I got a contract with UNICEF. I lived in Mexico to limit expenses. I started working with a dietitian to nip the eating disorder in the bud. I got online teaching contracts for coding courses and starting paying down my debt (which I hate… so it’s always a first goal, for me). And slowly… over time… over years… I rediscovered my voice, too. I transitioned with surprising ease from Data Science to Data Engineering, and I even co-authored a book within that field with a more senior Engineer. That, on top of living in over 7 countries, an uncountable number of cities, and studying more than a handful of languages before Brazilian Portuguese fully stole my heart…It even pulled me to live in Brasil as an official resident for more than a year’s time…And, now, I’ve empowered myself with a self-funded sabbatical for a full calendar year, with my own savings and investment accounts, while I fully embrace the path I’ve always wanted to be on in life.
Sure, I made plenty of epic failures in the 5 years since this huge, massive, fallout in my life. But I’ve also thrived.
When there is nothing left of your old life, and you’re forced remake it from the ground up, it’s excruciatingly painful, and sometimes it feels like you’re ripping out your fingernails again and again…. but, with the Clarity of the Now, I have so much gratitude for it all. I can see my pattern of strength, my pattern of perseverance, and even my pattern of self-abandonment.
It is no longer a surprise to me, a shock, of how epically my mid-20s relationship failed. That life was never meant for me; it was too small. So, while I have shame over some of my (very) unhealed behavior, I have now learned to treasure my anger, my temper, my emotional responses. Because I chose to remain trapped in that life (even during the time when he, himself, already wanted me out of it). And I take responsibility for that. I stayed because I was scared to make life up on my own, that the known suffering was better than the unknown life perspectives. But, as it turns out, it wasn’t. Not even close!
So… why am I writing this today?
Simple. I’m finally choosing to let it go. All of it. I have so much gratitude for that experience, and the polarity of my successes and thriving, thereafter. I’m letting go of choosing men who, even at their best, lack emotional clarity of themselves - let alone others. And in the shame of realizing my own patterns of cruelty, I chose men who were opposite: emotionally volatile, outwardly cruel, and often times violent. While these “lovers” never lasted more than a few weeks, the violence was clear. So, I’m also letting go of choosing the opposite type of man, the kind where there is no peace… or no safety…
I am taking accountability for my flawed nature, that is forever growing, that is forever failing forward.. but I know, now, that it no longer blocks me from a deeply loving relationship that will provide the seeds for the family I will create, soon.
I am ready. I am ready for you to find me, now. ♡