I love Sex and the City and I adore Carrie Bradshaw. For years I’d idolized her problematic relationships with men. But perhaps this might have been the most damaging thing I’ve done to myself in my twenties.

Her insecurities and how nuts it drove her about what other people thought of her and yet always continued to do as she pleased. How she sabotaged every relationship she’d ever been in since Big. How Aiden was perfect and she tried she really did but Big was always this one big exception and he was always so selfish he would just come and go as he pleased not caring about what it was doing to her.

He was confusing her when she never really got over him. She was really independent but when it came to anything that mattered she always needed someone to lean on. God, starting to unlove Carrie is breaking my heart but I can see how I’ve sabotaged myself by being so obsessed with her mentality.

They say;

“If you love something set it free. If it comes back it’s yours. If not, it was never meant to be.”

or they were never yours – which in this case is too damn accurate.

“A better interpretation is that you cannot force someone to love you. You have to give them the freedom to choose.”

It didn’t matter in the end. When he left he left. Does it make any difference that I asked him to leave? Does it break my heart any less that I initiated this ending? No. It doesn’t. Sometimes you just have to close your eyes, bolt your heart and silently hope that it doesn’t kill you.

I haven’t felt this sleepless since 2010. I don’t know if this is life’s way of throwing me 10 years back or if life is coming a full circle. I feel as shitty as I did when I was 17 and I’m 27 now. One would think things would change. My priorities and responsibilities have, but I’ve remained the same in many ways.

How could one be this sleepless? I had completely forgotten. I barely get an hour or two during the day and then I’m wide awake. Tired as fuck but just unable to sleep. Am I getting over something I’ve been denying? What is hitting me so hard? Was digging up old wounds a bad idea – of course, but it helped me understand myself in many ways. Then what, why am I awake?

Instead of 2 am meltdowns I now have 4 pm meltdowns after not being able to sleep for more than 24 hrs. I’m not even worried about my skin or dark circles anymore, I just want to sleep. I’m tired of being awake.

The moon reminds me of you, and how could it not? Your glare reflected so luminously on my blackness, I couldn’t help but admire how you spotlit my hopeless world. It would’ve been a crime not loving you.

Constant music, flickering lights, people on their phones. What a trigger.

Hold my hand before I lose it, distract me before I spiral into the darkness of my own mind. Ask me to stay.

More shots, more wine, more hands. Let go.

You’re special Ana, you’re a very smart girl Ana. I wish you were smarter Ana.

When a man who is in not obliged to provide you support whispers, I wish you were smarter, you could’ve made something out of yourself. Disregarding your present, cancelling out your past achievements just because you’re not in a cage they built. These are predators. Painting alluring images of a better life, seducing you with security.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from my past relationships is that obsessing over a person who’s no longer in your life won’t make them come back to you. There’s no amount of energy you can put into a dead affair that’ll change its course. But it’s one of my toxic traits. I’ve done this way too often, I’ve clenched onto their memories long after they’ve gone and relived them by going over the relationship repeatedly. It’s self-sabotage and not recommended. Maybe a part of me was too afraid to let go because what I’d felt with them seemed incredible at one point. But that’s the thing. Just because it was wonderful at one point doesn’t mean it is now. And the version of them you keep alive in your mind isn’t what they are anymore.

Drowning in this salty sea of tears and remembering the last time I saw you. I weeped on your shoulders but for completely different reasons. Carefully laying out tissues on your mint green T-shirt afraid my tears could stain. And now, I weep because you’ve left a huge stain in my heart and no amount of tissue papers would keep your absence at bay.

I keep saying my prayers to the ocean, hoping the universe will hear me.

Sometimes we hold onto memories because they are so goddamn precious. But that’s all that they are in the end. Nothing but memories and ashes of what was. So let’s make new memories to forget the old, watch new sunrises and new sunsets. Send new selfies and make new video calls. Screen shot new messages and dial new numbers. Read new poems and write even, so that someday soon, you can look at the sky and think not of him, but of you, and all the dead stars you wished upon tonight hoping to forget the old and find the new.

I don’t know. I’m trying to heal. Live with all my bad decisions, or rather let go. What’s most painful is losing control of yourself in the process of losing someone. What we must remember is relationships don’t always end because you stop loving them. And this is why the love you have for them demands control over them even after the relationship has ended. And this is the most foolish thing you can do, expecting control over them.

They might have been your entire world, but from the moment things end, that changes. What they do next is none of your business. Anticipating their next move, and being anxious about it could drive you insane. That is why it is important to understand, we can’t control everyone, not even the ones whom we love and love us.

The only thing you have control over is you, and that is enough – because you are in control of how you feel about everything. Change of perspective can take you miles away from pain. It can help you empathize and understand, it can help you accept and heal.

It’s insanely difficult to accept how someone could be your entire world one day – and the moment things end it feels like it meant nothing. You lose contact, you lose the support system that held you. The further you drift from this reality the harder you question the authenticity of it all? Did they really care? Because as humans we tend to forget, even in breakups we seek reassurances. This comes from a lack of trust and reasonable doubt. But wouldn’t we feel so much lighter, if we just let go? Easier said than done, I know. But let’s start now. Before ghosts of your ex-lovers start feeling like old friends, let’s start letting go.