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Her Anger Like A Fire

Byjack

Her Anger Like Fire

I felt her anger like fire

Burning in my face

Searing like acid

Felt the heat of it

Within her body

But all I could think of

Was the weight of the cold stones filling my heart

While I wondered

What happens

When love

Gives up

 

I realized something today. Sometimes when you love someone so much, you can’t give them space. Love needs space to grow, absence to remind you what it is made of. Sometimes, if you really love someone, you have to let them go. Even if it means they may never come back.

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3 AM In the Morning

Byjack

Early this morning I parted ways with a friend and a girl who I loved deeply. While everything is fresh, I want to write everything I loved and hated about her in order to deal with the heartbreak and to understand better what I want in a girlfriend.

What I loved:

  • She didn’t expect anything out of me, let me do whatever I wanted, allowed me to express how I felt
  • Was very intelligent fast learner
  • Was beautiful and soft and small
  • Always interested in my thoughts and ideas
  • Had a great sense of humor
  • Understood me, or at least tried to understand when I explained it to her
  • Validated a lot of my ability to read her mind, made me feel safe
  • Was comforting when I was feeling unwell or insecure
  • Was submissive and wanted me to dominate her
  • Had strong opinions and a deep internal landscape
  • Was reasonable in our conversations, could take feedback
  • Was needy and made me feel loved
  • Was extremely emotional and passionate

What I didn’t like:

  • Cold and distant, like to laugh sarcastically and say hurtful things when upset
  • Said she wasn’t very creative and didn’t try to come up with things to talk about
  • Played a sum loss game and would be in denial and extremely defensive
  • Liked being toxic to people when they did badly or were slightly annoying
  • Would give up extremely easily
  • Defiant and stubborn, inflexible
  • Poor memory for happy times when she’s upset, spirals
  • Didn’t like singing or dance
  • Didn’t like trying new food
  • Sometimes gaslighting and in denial when it threatened her ego
  • Was not interested in working on herself

Overall, I felt that my needs were getting met less and less because she would never deal with any trauma that came her way, choosing to avoid things instead. I felt that she stopped being so objective and instead was really unable to listen to the truth when it hurt her ego. However, I still love her very much and hope she will at least come back and want to be friends. I do feel some relief though to be able to focus on myself and explore dating in the city. I feel very alone without her. I hope she is doing ok and will see one day that I really did love her.

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Poem Draft and Other Thoughts

Byjack
Moth Dust

I had a dream she messaged me
All caps and smiling letters
Like old times
When I was a boy
My friend showed me a bush
Full of moths
He grabbed one and showed me the dust that came off its wings
I wondered
If the moth
Like me
Felt something missing

 

Besides the poem, I also came up with a HUGE epiphany that suddenly makes everything clear. I realized that the main reason I’m so upset is that something that I thought was a friendship was much closer to a relationship than I would admit. The cycle I’m dealing with is less of a troubled friendship but rather a single>relationship>breakup>single cycle instead.

In order to move on, I need to start thinking like someone who is single who is getting over a breakup. It’s a bit embarrassing we weren’t actually in a relationship, but who cares about stupid commitments and labels. The feelings I had were far beyond friendship and the fact that they were reciprocated made it something more.

This also gives me insight into how I behave in a relationship, I’ll break it up into two categories, single mindset and relationship mindset.

My Mindset When Single
  1. Focus on being myself and doing things that make me happy
  2. Want to meet new friends and lovers who can accept me for exactly who I am
  3. Not afraid to open up to people because I welcome rejection (so the people who remain I feel 100% comfortable and supported around)
  4. Freedom is what I’m searching for
My Mindset When in a “Relationship”
  1. Focus on exploring and deepening the connection between us
  2. Not interested in meeting anyone new, feels like too much work
  3. Especially not interested in talking to romantic interests because I find it hard to imagine they will be able to accept how much I love someone else (feels like I can’t open up about a huge part of my life)
  4. Love is what I’m searching for

Everything makes sense now – the feeling that I have to “find myself” and get time alone was basically my understanding (at the time) of reconnecting with my single person mindset, asking her to “pull me back” was my plea at asking her to go back to our pseudo-relationship. I had a strong feeling that I needed to just process my loss of what we had instead of trying to “fix” things and now I know why. We are basically not on the same page anymore and any semblance of a relationship is gone. In fact, it’s been slipping away for some time now.

Once I am able to fully process this “breakup” I can fully reconnect as a single person.

Side thought: I think I’m probably a monogamist from this experience. I can only hold strong feelings for one person at a time.

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Workspace 21: Be the Underdog

Byjack

I’ve been thinking more about rejection and working through some of my thoughts with it.

I want people to validate me to feel confident being myself. But validation and confidence are completely different.

Confidence is all about being ok with not getting other’s approval and validation, being ok with not being the strongest, the smartest, the most attractive. I want to find a way to let go of seeking approval from everyone. That is seriously holding me back.

The first thing I realized is that I need to be clear about what I value outside of approval.

I love solving difficult problems. I love learning, growing, and improving myself. I love creating. I love meeting new people and connecting with those people on a deep level. I love consuming art and music, writing and dance.

Being rejected doesn’t stop me from pursuing those things. In fact, people who reject me might realize my path is one they admire and want to follow.

The second thing I realized is that I can use rejection as motivation. It’s just a challenge to my ego. It makes me stronger.

I don’t want anything handed to me. The hero has the slay the dragon. I want to be the underdog, and I strive for greatness.

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What If It Wasn’t Real

Byjack
What If It Wasn’t Real

She used to message me and beg me to get on to play
I thought she needed me then
Loved spending time together
We would joke
And talk about life
Little things
These days she plays
Without me
It’s me who asks
And she reluctantly accepts
In the game, she’s all anger and frustration
She hates the game
She hates the teammates
She hates me
And she hates herself
She denied that she ever had fun with me today
Says she can’t remember the last time we played
That I annoy her
That we need to win if we play
That we just don’t work together
“I like small talk,” she says about her new friends
“We are too busy asking about favorite colors”
“For me to be mad”
I remember a time we asked each other our favorite colors
I wonder if it was less special than I thought
Or if her new friends are more special than me
Its doubt that destroys love
Not hate or anger
Doubt eating away at a foundation so strong
It promised forever
Today I worry
If I left
Would she even notice
Over the laughter
Of her new friends

This poem is about feeling like what you thought you both cherished, only you actually cherished. That there wasn’t a connection at the level that I originally thought.

If that is actually true, I don’t feel heartbroken. Only depressed. So incredibly disappointed that everything was not as special as I thought it was. It takes me back to my dark places, wondering if anyone could truly love me.

Part of me knows it’s more complicated than that. That there is still hope for us. Still hope for me.

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Even If She Wanted Me Back

Byjack
Even If She Wanted Me Back

Even if she wanted me back

I wonder

Will it be like before

No secrets between us

No unspoken words

Or will I feel like I’m on a sinking ship

The water at my chest

Threatening to drown me

The words she used to hurt me

Only hurt

Because I trusted her enough

To expose my naked heart

I know if she asks

I will try to open my heart again

But I worry

That invisible locks

Have already formed

To protect me

And she doesn’t have the willpower

To find the keys

 

I am scared knowing that the amount of pain between us may be too much to overcome. Pain is always an invitation for growth, but how much is someone willing to grow? I worry sometimes I made a huge mistake. I did it because of the feeling that it was over already. That staying would have been just trying to push along a dream, squeeze out the last bit of real connection that we had. I felt that I had to try to give things enough space for perspective. I wonder sometimes if she even has the capability to feel the love I felt for her. Whether it was just an obsession for her, when it was love for me.

A Willingness to Endure Pain

Byjack

It is extremely hard to be yourself all the time. There will always be things that you want to avoid, that you are afraid of. Specifically, things that you don’t like about yourself.

Control gives the illusion of happiness. The fear of loss of control is like all fear and uncomfortable feelings. It is not something that needs a solution or be avoided. You don’t solve the lack of control by being more controlling. You don’t solve fear by avoiding your fear.

Emotions are meant to be reacted to, and the solution is meant to come to you, not something to be forced into existence. The most healthy way to process painful emotions is through physicality, expression and meditation:

  • Physicality – punching, running, yelling, screaming, crying and sort of physical release
  • Expression – writing, talking, recording a video diary
  • Meditation – letting the emotions come and go

I used to write that you should follow what you feel. Sometimes, you don’t KNOW how you feel. That’s ok. Clarity is about patience. The patience to wait for the answers to come, to be able to sit in the pain for long enough to see the truth.

And at the end of the day, clarity will bring an understanding of not just how we feel, why we feel it, but what we truly want. That is truly being ourselves, following what we want in the moment. Embracing that is the key to true happiness, confidence, and feeling truly alive.