I don’t intend to glorify the sadness that is of my life. Only a few know of my daily struggles and the pain it causes me, or maybe no one knows at all. Some of it is embarrassing. I can’t even write about it. And that’s something coming from someone who has never for a moment hesitated to get real with the world. You can fight your whole life and still lose, because life wins. Not because it’s a good life, but it’s kept you alive, so far.

In this quest to overcome my tragedy, I have learnt that packing my bags, quitting my job and moving miles away might have been the easy part. The haunting loneliness that followed has been impenetrable.

I came looking for solitude and the answers to all the questions that kept me up at night. But instead, I am welcomed into a dark palpable reality that I am alone. It is true what they say, with no one to share your mind with, everything feels very meaningless. The concept of life falls around companionship and togetherness. A support system surrounding love and trust. And yet I’ve come miles, desperate for isolation. Away from the city lights and ex-lovers, to my personal rehab.

So here I am, in the middle of nowhere. Feeling deprived and looking for answers in the waves Melodia, hoping for it to whisper them to me if I promise to stay long enough.

I spent days wondering and analyzing the relationship I left to die, one that I starved out of my love because I couldn’t conform into a more desirable candidacy. I loved him, without question. But it was well doubted. My idea of love had changed over the years. It had become a convenience. And the only way I would know for sure was by leaving everything I’d built behind. Him, my job. I had to find myself, without him.

It was towards the end of our story, I realized the mess I was. I certainly wasn’t his mess to clean. My mess had been cumulating long before his entrance. And it would continue to stack with or without his exit. I had to breathe and take a big long step back, to hold myself together. With all the white noise in the background, life was getting too much. I had to get out. I had to leave. I loved him, I knew this in my gut, but why was I not letting him love me? I had to fix myself. It is unfair of us to let others take the hit for what had absolutely nothing to do with them. We can pray for their understanding and patience, but what do they owe you?

The isolation I’ve surrounded myself with has forced me to face the ghosts I’ve yielded in my closets forever. Maybe I was too broken to love. Without cleaning this mess, it was foolish to think I would let love in again.

Love doesn’t always come knocking. Sometimes you find them in corner offices, in the face of a complete stranger. It is not always love at first sight. Love appears and when you fail to notice, it goes away. And then reappears with antibiotics when you’re sick, random chocolates and saves you from strangers at dancefloors. Love doesn’t know, but love saves you from yourself. But you – a rebel, don’t want to be saved. Because no matter how hard love tries to conform you into what you’re not, you can’t rip off your skin and grow a new one without bleeding. You hope that love can love you, for you. But love can’t. And love leaves. Love lies.

If you ask me, I’ll tell you tonight was a mistake. I’ll tell you I didn’t mean to cry. I’ll tell you I wish it didn’t hurt but it does. I’ll tell you I don’t know how to make these tears stop. I’ll tell you how lost I am. But only if you ask me.

I swore to one-day grow as cold as my old lovers, to not care like they did, to stay unfazed in the presence of a worshipper. In the end, it all came true. I grew cold, emotions died and I was nothing but the remains of a girl who once loved.

But it only made me sadder, because I ended up losing the life I had in me just so I could hurt others more than they hurt me. This clearly wasn’t the way to go and I wish someone told me sooner.

You fucked me up so badly, I couldn’t love myself, or anyone else. God, I fucking hate you. It’s taken me five miserable years to even hate you.

Shouldn’t there be a rule where you can’t get close to someone else when your heart no longer belongs to you?

And even though I wasn’t ready to hear it, I think it was needed, “he didn’t choose you”. Well, there you go.

It wasn’t about choices, it was about going on.

Guilt stops us from going after the things we want. Guilt stops us from saying sorry like we mean it. Guilt makes us feel like we shouldn’t let in people we care about, all because we’ve made mistakes in the past. Guilt stops us from going forward, guilt keeps us looping in our worst nightmares.

We often seek forgiveness from people we care about for our mistakes and it is so important that they forgive us because we feel that we won’t be able to go on until they do. But the truth is, it’s not their forgiveness we need. We need to forgive ourselves to be able to go on. What they think doesn’t even matter anymore because you have to live with you. So, start with forgiving yourself, and telling yourself it’s okay you slipped that one time or many times. No one is perfect.

We fall, we learn. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re so much more than you think you are.

Selfless good deeds, do they even exist? When was the last time you’ve done something for someone out of love without expecting anything in return, without even an acknowledgement of your bare minimum effort? Probably never. But when your call gets lost and the messages get lost in others, that indeed ends up becoming a selfless good deed that ended up causing you utter humiliation instead of retaliation.

I woke up today and started seeing all the decade rewind posts on Twitter and thought to myself, what has my decade been like? So I started with the list which made me look back on my life like I have never before;

2009: the worst
2010: 💔
2011: gave up on school & moved to Male’
2012: was a literal mess
2013: got an internship & landed the first Resort job at Front Office #GreatBeginnings
2014: I can’t even remember what this year was about – might’ve been actually happy
2015: 💔 by someone who wasn’t worth it
2016: thought I’d met the love of my life
2017: Jumped into Sales & Marketing #BestCareerMove 💪🏽
2018: exhausted & mentally drained
2019: 💔 got out of something I never thought I’d have the balls to get out of 🙏🏽

I’ve worked in resorts continuously since 2013; although the distance got tough I love what I do and couldn’t be happier.

“𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘣𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘮𝘢 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐’𝘮 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 & 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 ‘𝟶𝟿.”

It was only towards the end of the post that I realized everything about the past decade was me stepping away from everything that went down in 2009. 2009 was indeed the absolute worst. I’ve forgotten most of it, how it felt, how most of it felt, but there are things I still remember and things I wish I could forget. And if I’ve learned anything at all that is, some wounds don’t heal unless you treat them. I thought I could run away from it, but halfway through my marathon, I realized if I didn’t want to feel the things I’ve been running away from I’d always be running. I can never stop. But by then it was too late. Running away was the only thing I knew. So that is what I did.

Maybe someday when I have the words I’ll write about my 2009. I think I have an unfinished attempt Here for now.