When I met Bobby I had been single for a long time.
I hadn’t gone on a date in about four years, and I had lost all confidence in myself, both emotionally and physically.
Every once in a while, usually when we’re fighting, he brings up the fact that when we met, I was doing intense EMDR therapy to, as he says, “get over” my ex.
It’s not getting over my exes that is the problem – they’re all gone for a reason.
Getting over the way things had ended was the issue.
I was stunned by it; it was a blow I didn’t see coming and it was hard enough to see me flying out of his life, forever.
The therapy I was having wasn’t because I was still in love with him and wanted to be with him.
The therapy was so I could convince myself that it’s okay to try giving love another chance with someone else.
I had to learn that life’s a gamble, love is a crapshoot, and nothing is guaranteed, but we have to go all in either way.
I suppose what I have realized is you can think your heart is broken and that you’ll never recover, but you will.
You can think it’s too scary to let someone else in, to trust someone to commit and stay – and it is fucking scary! – but you can do it, and you have to do it if you want a committed, lifelong relationship.
You can’t win if you don’t play.
Or so they say.
God, I’m jumping in the deep end
Gracie Abrams, “risk”
It’s more fun to swim in
Heard the risk is drownin’, but I’m gonna take it
I’m gonna take it
Life goes on.
We can know at the very least that every day eventually has the courtesy to end.
I’ve heard the same expression in different ways a lot lately:
You can do anything for thirty seconds.
You can do anything for ten seconds.
Sit there and count that out.
Ten seconds is a long time when you imagine the floor is actually lava.
I’ve heard a lot lately about trying harder to not worry about the things I can’t control, and not to worry ahead of time.
I should heed this advice, because very often (especially at work) I panic that I’ve done something wrong and then catastrophize all how I’ll be berated for it, and then it ends up not being a big deal at all.
It’s good advice, she says.
I should heed it, she says…
