absoluteinvolution: real, raw & relatable.

One year. 52 weeks. 365 days. 525,600 minutes.

I kept wondering why I was feeling anxious in the weeks leading up to today. We don’t realize exactly how much the body keeps the score, until we figure out the cause of the anxious feelings.

One year ago today, we started speaking to each other in a different way, a different context. There was a shift in the way we interacted with each other and I was hopeful. After spending so many years feeling like I was surrounded by heaviness and darkness, you entered my life. Excitement and hopefulness filled my heart and soul, my body was vibrating with feelings I hadn’t ever thought possible anymore. I tried so hard to keep those emotions at bay, tried to play things cool, calm and collected.

As I sit here and think back on the last year of my life; parts of me are happy, parts of me are sad. I can look back at different moments and pinpoint every emotion in the wheel. In life, we have to figure out if the people who come into it are for a reason or a season. You were a reason. I needed to remember what it was like to feel safe, secure, protected and cherished. My life to that date had been filled with so many ups and down (and continued to be over the next year), but you were a breath of fresh air. You helped remind me that I could love someone again, that I could feel loved again.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I needed to learn to uphold my boundaries. My self worth and self respect were being put on the backburner for your needs. Once again, I spent more time focusing on another person, maintaining their happiness, bringing ease to their life. Showing them that they could be loved regardless of their past or present traumas. I got into a new relationship, promising myself I wouldn’t bring my past into it but I did exactly that. Even though you told me it wasn’t my responsibility to ensure your happiness, I still made it my mission to bring you happiness, to be YOUR peace. Doing that for you because I felt you did that for me and you did, at least for a little while.

I told you I didn’t have another heartbreak in me, I told you I couldn’t handle another betrayal. You promised you’d never do that. As much as it broke me, hurt me, damaged me and almost entirely ruined me; I thank you.

I know… It sounds insane, it sounds like I’ve completely and utterly lost my mind. I am thankful though. I’m starting to have good days, it’s been 4 months and some days the pain hits the exact same. But other days, I can breath. I remember that I am a good person, that none of the things that you did have any barring to my own actions. I can sit there and say you did certain things because I didn’t do certain things for you. That you did those things because you needed more, but at the end of the day you would’ve done those things regardless. Your issues, your traumas, your decisions are exactly that. Your own.

I know I am the best person you’ve ever met. I know I was the best thing in your life, because I am exactly that. I’m a loving person, I’m a loyal person. I am that “Ride or Die” that men search for. If I love you, I will move mountains because “If they wanted to, they would.” I did. Time and time again, I will continue to do that with whoever my person ends up being.

I deserve every thing in the world. I deserve someone who will move mountains for me, the way I’ve always moved mountains for those I have loved. I deserve someone who sees me as the most beautiful woman in the world, someone who puts me on a pedestal because that’s where I belong in their eyes. To be adored, loved and appreciated whole heartedly because they not only see my value, they truly cherish it. Even though you didn’t, it doesn’t change the fact that someone will. One day, maybe a year from now even, someone will.

They will see what you couldn’t, they’ll love the things you couldn’t. They will hold me the way you did, but this time they won’t let me go. They will separate themselves from all the other men who have come into my life. I’ll be reminded why I am the way I am, why I love the way I do. My love is not “too much”, my love is not overwhelming, my love is not suffocating. My love is grand, my love is pure, my love is unconditional. If you ever get the beautiful opportunity to experience it, realize that it is once in a lifetime. If you choose to let it go, you will search for the rest of your life to find something that compares. You will experience a losing battle because there is nothing like the love I provide.

I wish you well, I do hope you get everything in life that you desire. Smiles and laughter, pure unadulterated love and affection. I hope you heal the wounds those before me have caused you, the pain and traumas you’ve experienced in life. I wish you peace, I wish you quiet headspace and dreams that don’t turn into nightmares. I wish you calmness and stillness, so you can finally feel like you don’t have to hide behind your work or the gym.

Thank you for showing me that I’m still able to love, even with all the pain I’ve experienced from others including yourself. You will always be part of my heart and soul, but I know now that I don’t have to physically carry that. The person I was a year ago has died, but from ashes we are reborn.

“In truths that she learned, or in times that he cried
In bridges he burned, or the way that she died.”

-A.