[From the Diaries]

So deeply uninterested.

Nothing feels exciting. Nothing feels new. There’s nothing I wake up looking forward to.

I feel alive when I look back at certain roads I’ve taken. But I don’t actually want to walk them again. The nostalgia feels electric. The reality probably wouldn’t.

It’s been this way for a while.

I try to put myself out there. I really do. But there’s this strange empathy that holds me back. A softness. A knowing that I’m not fully available. I reason with myself, tell myself it’s okay, tell myself healing isn’t linear. But I just can’t do it yet.

My therapist once asked me something that stayed with me. He asked if, with every relationship that ends, I feel like I lose a part of myself. Like a part of me dies with them.

I had never thought of it like that.

But I told him every breakup leaves me as a different version of myself. Some versions stronger. Some versions smaller. Some empowered. Some feeling less.

The only connection I’ve felt lately was one that promised permanency almost instantly. The minute I responded, it felt solid. And because it felt so easy, I thought it wouldn’t be so hard to feel that way again.

But it is.

Nothing sparks. Nothing shines. Nothing ignites that reckless fire in my soul.

And that’s why I keep looking back.

The most alive I’ve ever felt were the times I was doing something I probably shouldn’t have been doing.

I remember setting a time and waiting. Wondering if they’d show up. Wondering if they’d be early. Or late. Or not come at all.

One of them always showed up on time. The other barely did, and when he did, he was always late.

Maybe they’ll always be my favorite mistakes.

They were similar in the way they made me feel. But one reciprocated it more. It felt mutual. Like we were both burning at the same temperature. There was no escaping it.

June 2019.

A time I sometimes wish I could relive.

From a distance it feels perfect. Cinematic. Glowing. But it wasn’t. It was complicated. It was wrong in ways that should have made me ashamed. But I wasn’t ashamed.

Because I wasn’t demanding anything. I wasn’t pushing for more. I was just existing in it. Going with the flow. Letting it be what it was.

And he made me feel alive again.

That’s the dangerous part.

I’m starting to realize I might have a type. Smart. Corporate. A little reserved. Slightly intense. The quiet kind who surprises you with how deeply they think.

Short. Slim. Controlled.

Age doesn’t matter.

What matters is how they make me feel.

And right now, nothing does.

[From the Diaries]

Truth be told, I don’t even understand it myself. How I was crazy about him, and now it’s just… gone. When it faded, I didn’t notice the exact moment. It must have been gradual. A slow dimming. A quiet exit of feeling.

After most breakups, I usually sit there wondering: did they love me? Did I love them? This time, I don’t question that. I know we both did. He may have loved me too late. I loved him too soon. His fire is burning now, and mine has long turned to ash.

And I know we hear this all the time, but men rarely believe it until it’s too late. Women do not walk away overnight. It happens slowly. The detachment. The grieving. The accepting. And during all those stages, there is still hope. But it is probationary hope. Every move is evaluated. Every word scored against the possibility of a future.

When you fail that stage, whatever is left quietly dies too.

I think we had been drifting for a while. He was foolish to keep taking me for granted. After all, I am a woman who has stayed through worse. He never imagined I would leave one day. Especially not over something he calls trivial.

But it wasn’t trivial.

It was months of accumulated, unresolved weight that finally collapsed. And in that collapse, I saw a version of him that terrified me. Once you see that version, you cannot unsee it. I knew in that moment I would never look at him the same again.

There are no regrets. There is no point in hating something you once enjoyed. Every failed relationship brings me closer to myself. It teaches me to love myself better. To value myself more. I learn so much in the process. Maybe that is what healing looks like.

There is no bitterness. No anger. No sadness.

Just indifference.

At first, I loved him beyond logic. I would bend at every whim. Slowly, piece by piece, he chipped away at that version of me until I came back to my senses.

How can I regret something that kept me on my toes for eleven months? I had fun. It was a rollercoaster. I learned that I can love a man wholeheartedly, without complaint. But I also learned something just as important: I will stop loving entirely if I am not loved back in the same way.

That is my truth.

I did not walk away from love. I am simply returning to myself.

Timing is everything. If you do not love someone while their heart is open to you, you may not realize when it quietly closes. I would not have loved him so quickly had I not been misled. He said “I love you” within a week. I waited a month to say it back. Foolishly, I believed him. Of course he did not love me then.

Now I know better.

It is still tricky, though. I do not consider these later loves the greatest loves. Sometimes they feel like the discounted versions I accept because I missed out on my great one.

But even as I write that, I question it. Who was my great one? There were a few contenders. From where I stand now, none of them were. Some gave me deep love and beautiful memories. Others taught me how to cheer for myself. Each of them shaped me in some way.

I am grateful for that.

Maybe I am not unlucky. Maybe being single in my thirties is not a curse. I had a lot to heal from. I am still healing. That made me difficult for some people to love. I used to call it charm. Maybe it was just growth in progress.

I do not consider myself unlucky. I genuinely believe that what is meant for me will be for me.

And I am letting go of the stigma around dating, around trying, around not settling. Society may look at it one way. But what is a woman supposed to do? Compromise on love? I did not settle before. Why should I now?

Que sera, sera.

Whatever will be, will be.

[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.

[From the Diaries]

I never really talk about how bad it gets. There is so much shame around things people do not understand. Anything outside the norm becomes “icky” or “what’s wrong with you?”

But it is just my reality.

Some days are hard to explain. I can usually feel a low coming before it fully lands. It sits somewhere deep in my body. But the timing is never convenient, so I ignore it. I push through. I function.

That is what they call functional depression. You still show up. You still do the things. It almost feels like it operates on your terms. It takes over quietly, and you learn how to coexist with it.

I stayed in bed for over twenty-four hours. The day before, I forced myself to go for a run because the voices in my head were getting louder. I felt uncomfortable in my own body. Restless. Exhausted. I thought moving would fix it.

It didn’t.

It made everything heavier.

I am not paralyzed, but I feel mentally impaired. Like my brain is moving through fog.

And then there is the weight of relationships.

I only have one that truly matters right now. And even that one feels fractured some days. So damaged that I do not know where to begin repairing it.

When I am in these lows, I no longer try to analyze them. I let them wash over me and wait for them to pass so I can feel like myself again. So I can have the energy and the will to exist properly.

And then something happens.

Something small on the surface. But not small to me.

An interaction. A name. A presence that already carries history and discomfort. Old rumors. Old wounds. Old doubts that were supposedly resolved.

Weeks ago, I had already discovered conversations that should not have existed. Explanations that felt thin. Timing that felt suspicious. I wanted them to make sense. I really did. But they didn’t.

And my mental state is not an excuse for anyone to take advantage of my vulnerability.

I am supposed to be with someone who understands me. All of me. Especially the flawed parts. Because they are part of the package.

Instead, I kept uncovering little deceptions. Names disguised. Details hidden. Small acts that required intention. Not accidents. Intention.

When I saw the most recent thing, I snapped. It felt disrespectful. Especially when we are supposedly rebuilding trust.

What shocked me more was that he was angrier at my reaction than at the behavior itself.

He did not understand how it looked. How it felt. How, in the middle of trying to repair something fragile, actions like that feel like someone stomping on glass.

I do not even have the words anymore.

I was already mentally drained.

And now I am just tired.