[From the Diaries]
After almost a year of battling something so uncertain, something that kept knocking me off balance every now and then, I finally detached.
It did not happen dramatically. There was no grand decision. No explosion. It happened so quietly I did not even realize it at first. But somewhere along the way, it must have been intentional. Because there were so many nights I prayed to feel less. I wished I could dull the intensity. I wished his actions did not hurt me the way they did.
And then one day, they didn’t.
His betrayals felt less shocking. His patterns less surprising. Even my anger softened. It was almost as if I was watching it from a distance. Like I was waiting for the feeling to completely dissolve.
And maybe that was the moment it ended.
Like every other time, I swore I was in love when it all began. And like every other time, now that it is over, I question whether it was love at all. But I have to say yes. Because I did things for this man I would never do in my right mind.
So either I was in love.
Or I was out of my mind.
Which, honestly, sometimes feels like the same thing.
Now that it is over, let’s look back. Not too much. Just enough to make sense of it.
For the first few months, he wasn’t really mine. Not fully. He said he was committed. Later, I would find out that wasn’t true. That period felt like hell, but I normalized it. I saw him through rose-tinted glasses and convinced myself that chaos was chemistry.
Sometimes he would disappear for days. No explanation. I would unravel quietly. Sleepless. Anxious. Trying to make sense of something that did not make sense.
In October, I wrote:
“I think I know deep down that I deserve better, but better hasn’t really come along. My heart doesn’t settle on better — it settles on chaos.”
In November, I wrote:
“Fuck that love that doesn’t wipe my tears or hold me when I’m down.”
“The worst men make the prettiest girls feel ugly.”
By the end of November, I was in mental trenches. The lowest I had been in over a decade. And I am ashamed that I allowed someone to take me there.
But by April, something shifted. I had shifted.
In May, I wrote:
“I want to love without surveillance.
I want to breathe without fear.
I want to trust again — even if my hands are still shaking.”
I was still trying. Still hoping.
And then June came, and I wrote:
“There’s a version of love we don’t talk about enough — the kind that lives on after trust has been broken, the kind that stays even when the heart has been bruised more than once.”
And somewhere in between those words, without even realizing it, I had started choosing myself.
I did not walk away from love.
I simply returned to myself.
And I want to end with this.
I am not walking away angry. I am not walking away bitter. I am not even walking away heartbroken in the way I expected.
I am walking away relieved.
Like a weight has lifted from my chest.
Because loving him felt like standing on ground that could collapse at any moment. Like bracing myself constantly for impact.
And now, for the first time in a long time, I am standing on solid ground.
And I am free of that.
She Was Sea 