An intro to my dating life:

Here are a series of events that I’d like to now call the “lessons I didn’t want to learn but had to”.

Don’t get me wrong, before my mom passed away, my dating life was still a mess, but probably less chaotic. In high school, I thought my boyfriend back then would be my husband and he even got me a promise ring, which I still have to this day. Funny how distant of memory it seems right now. I had a standard dating life in college, from casual dating to losing my virginity, falling in love, and falling out of love. However midway through it, things took a turn because of everything that happened.

In these last 4 years, except for maybe 2, every ex, situationships, casual friends with benefits have made a return in my life. Either to re-date me, hook up again, or just be my friends. In most cases against my better judgment, I let them back into my life, some may be more than once. Now looking back on it, after having yet another one of those cycles closed out, I started to introspect why.

Every time I let them in, I feel like unknowingly, I was using their familiarity to remind me of who I used to be before I lost my mother. The familiarity and knowingness led me to give them chances they frankly did not deserve but that comfort that came from having them back in my life was in my mind worth it at the moment. In ways, it was making me avoid work on the things I needed to, which was to recognize that these men coming back into my life was not going to magically fill my mother missing hole or that they won’t bring her back?

I know in theory and reality it was not possible, but sometimes when you are in that fugue state, everything is out of order. But after a while, I kept making that excuse because it was easier, and I was afraid of what will happen if I let go.

Holding on to people that I should have let go of, giving people chances after the countless red flags, mistreatments, and making me unworthy. To me, letting go was somehow worse, than recognizing how bad they were for me and how I kept losing myself in these people. Piece by piece, I was becoming someone else, I could barely recognize.

Don’t get me wrong, it sucks, but at the same time, I think, if someone is okay with the silence from you why reach out to them? It is an addiction no doubt, but frankly I, you, we all deserve someone better than just leaving us behind or making us wait days/weeks if not more for a decent response. In the past, I would swallow my pride and message that person, or reach out if a couple of hours or a day had gone by. But I am now changing the way I act in those situations, I am not saying become cold and cruel, but just when I am not being matched at the same level or when I am giving more than I am getting. Relationships are a give and take, and sometimes you will give more and sometimes the other person, but it took me very long to realize that I don’t need to be the one always giving the most.

It hurts a lot when people do not give you the answers you hoped to get, the closure to move on, or the things you wish you knew better when you were in the moment. I am trying not to regret the decisions I have made, and most parts of my life I can follow through on it, with things relating to my mom not so much, however that's a story for another day tho. But with my romantic relationships, I try not to regret what's done, because I know that at that point in my life, that was exactly what I wanted to/needed to do. Sure not all of it went my way, or things did not pan out for me but whether or not I wanted to, I learned lessons from it. I am trying to release the blame.

I am not saying I’m fully healed, I know I have a lot to work to do. But what I do realize is, why I do what I do, and that itself is a first step towards changing and building tools/skills to fix the current bad patterns and cycles I constantly used to find myself in…