alone
It’s Friday night. I taught my usual 6 pm yin yoga class and then went upstairs to do cardio after. While I’m walking on the treadmill, I had this sudden strange desire. A desire to disconnect. At this exact moment, ‘Car Radio’ started playing. Crazy as it sounds, I grabbed the handlebars, closed my eyes, and started breathing. Deeply. The world around me disappeared for four minutes.
Behind my closed eyes I saw these white strings falling loose from my heart space. That is the best way I can describe it. A broken, dull, pale gray heart in the center of my chest. And so in that moment, I made the decision to close myself off. This means I quite literally imagined closing my heart. I cut each string. String by string I pulled the thread.
I pressed each exhale forcefully out of my body. As if I was blowing away any remaining love in my heart. All of my heart’s connections — any past romantic connections, any current attachments, I saw these situations and then cut the tie to each of them. One followed by the next. Completely severed. By the end of the song, my heart was empty. I opened my eyes. I am safe again.
. . .
It’s now 11 pm. I sit alone. I stare blankly at my cell phone, then over to my business phone, then to my laptop, then back to my cell phone. No desire to speak to anyone, but a desire to feel alive. Deflated, I decide to start working again. Distraction or not, work is the only thing that makes me feel better. While I was updating my website, I clicked on the blog tab. Here I am. Tends to be a theme. I find it useful to transfer, or rather document, these moments so that one day I can look back and vividly recall how my life was. Maybe I write here also because I want to believe that one day things won’t be this way.
. . .
I haven’t talked to anyone about this actually. Since my last relationship (which ended about four years ago… wow I am just now realizing it has been four years), I have gone through many phases. Immediately following the break up — admittedly that weekend — I was on a date. The next morning I had instant regret. Disgust. Sadness. Depression. I drove home in silence. Looking back on this day, of which I remember to a T, this was probably one of the most rock-bottom eye-opening moments I had experienced. I had never felt like this.
Despite that degrading experience, I continued to put myself on all of the dating platforms and pretty much lined my calendar with guys. If I wasn’t on a date, I was planning the next one or drinking with friends. One of the two. That phase lasted a little too long if I am being honest. At some point I started to sense a switch from within. Something told me it was time to be alone. One night I was driving home (around 4 am) and thought to myself… “what the fuck am I doing?” Seriously. I am embarrassed to even share this right now. After that night, I had made the decision to take myself off the dating scene. I stopped going out with friends as often. I slowly started to dive inward. The rest is a blur to me.
Flash forward to my current situation: I am single. Can’t remember the last date I was on. I’m on my bed typing this on a Friday night at 11:30 pm. Everyone is online posting what they are doing tonight — dinner, friends, whatever the hell.
Let me be clear, this does not make me jealous. I don’t have FOMO. I thought maybe I did, but I have experimented with this. I pretend (LOL) that if someone were to have invited me out, how would I respond. I would say no. Every. Single. Time. I have no interest. Not in dinner, not in drinks, not in talking, nothing. There is just this void in my heart space. Every time I try to put myself out there and talk to someone new, I end up disappointed. I will say that I learn A LOT about myself each time I let my guard down though. Each time I soften my heart, each time I lower those walls, I uncover more insight into who I am. The good and the bad qualities are revealed. Things I thought I had changed about myself since my last serious relationship resurface. Traits I thought I had shifted only to find out I have the same mentality from when I was 20…
Youth is wasted on the young is it not?