someone i used to know

i bumped into someone from my past the other day. well, bumped into is a bit of an overstatement. i saw this person from a distance. it was the first time in over 10 years that we've crossed paths in this small town. i immediately seized and back-tracked to brendan to regain my composure. i'm not really sure if b understood the significance of this sighting, but he was there for me nonetheless. that relationship is something that i simply choose not to talk about. in fact, in my early blogging days, 12 years ago, i set some blogging ground rules, which included never discussing said events. at the time, that was really important for me. choosing not to talk about it was a way to empower myself. i was not, and am not defined by those experiences, and i would not let it be part of my new reality. but i think at this point, it is more empowering for me to acknowledge it.

here's the long and the short of it...

i had my first boyfriend when i was 15. it was rough and rocky. a bad start into boy-girl stuff. from there, i had a series of 5 boyfriends, over an 9 year period. each relationship was more intense, dramatic and screwed up than the last one (with the exception of joel, which was healthy, but simply not a good fit). by the end of my last relationship when i was 24, i was a hollow and unwell person. and as an unwell person, i pinned all my hopes for wholeness, worth, belonging and identity on one person (who happened to be that last boyfriend). it took about a year and a half (probably shortly before starting my blog) for me to be fully over that break-up. although, at some point, it really stopped being about that one person and/or relationship, but an imaginary version and projections that i had developed in my head. those were ugly years for me. and painful, because the process of emotional and healing is not an easy one, and there are no shortcuts.

after all that, two distinct things happened:

1) i buried everything. i took those experiences and buried them like old-timey garbage disposal. i gathered up that personal history and recognized that i did not want it. it was not who i am, it had no place in my personal narrative. so i buried it with a massive mound of earth. if i don't talk about it or acknowledge it, than it didn't happen. period.

and this has worked well for me. it really did help me to leave it behind and not bring that baggage with me. sometimes it will briefly come up in conversation or in passing, but i am very intentional to not linger on it. i'm certain that i change the subject very quickly. with one exception... one time, when we had first started dating, brendan and i laid on my bed, holding hands and staring at the ceiling, while i told him my whole 9-year dating saga. just so he'd know, and i wouldn't have to gradually tell him stuff over time. he's in the loop.

2) i have grown angry. i've felt protective and outraged on behalf of my younger self, who was so damaged by life's experiences that i ended up in a bad bad place. i have demonized one specific person, so much so that i have literally daydreamed about seeing him in public, and confronting him with swear words and curses. not because i was done wrong by him (i'm actually super glad and thankful that he ended that relationship. so much so, that i owe him a thank you). no, just because (and not surprising) that part of me that i've buried has festered.

spotting him in the grocery store left me unsettled. and i couldn't understand why. it didn't stir up positive or negative feelings. so why did it impact me? well, because my buried mount of personal history was exposed to me. it was like the earth had shifted, and i could see all that crap that i had buried. it was still there, and i saw that it was still real. my emotional time capsule had been uncovered.

this has been troubling me for the last 2 days. and i decided i needed to write about it. not in a private journal, where it could remain hidden and buried. or to a friend, where it could remain mostly hidden and private. or to brendan, would be personally brought into that story and unintentionally have those burdens placed on him. no, i decided i needed to blog about it. i needed to return to my source. the place i decided to bury it and properly deal with it. i don't need to bury it anymore, but i also don't need to hang on to it either. i'm truly done now. the last thing for me to let go of is my residual shame. i know that i'm not that messed-up 20-something anymore. and i don't need to convince you of that either, because you know who i am. i don't need to bury that part of me for me to be free from it. i acknowledge that i am not proud of that time in my life, but it does not have the final say on who i am. i don't need to hide to prove that i am better than i was then. i am well loved, i am whole and complete, i am part of a community, valued and respected, and not despite my past damage. i have grown strong out of that brokenness. whole, holy, complete, competent.

there. that's it. my therapeutic blog post :p

regrets collect like old friends,
here to relive your darkest moments.