There we were having the same fight again.
"I'm begging you to treat me better"
Then something inside me began to see it. I saw the years of asking to be treated a certain way, begging those I loved to love me the way I wanted and needed to be loved.
And how unfair it was to me, and them.
It's not my job to ask people to love me. I should be watching how they love and decide if I want to be a part of it. How we love is such a basic level of how we interact in the world. It's how we see, feel, express, and honestly, it's how we treat others. For too many years, in too many situations I stayed begging to be loved. Through the pain and the suffering in the holy name of LOVE, I stayed. I stayed around family members. I stayed in an abusive relationship. I stayed when I knew I should have left. With horrible clients, I stayed. I have a pattern of tolerating and staying.
I started questioning why I put up with everything I did. Why I was okay with my energy going soul-suckingly toward others all the time. I began to shut it down. I claim my energy as my own.
Then the questions came through.
"Where in your life are you enduring?"
My home.
Ouch.
"What feels out of alignment for you"
My connection to him
Double ouch.
"What advice would you give someone else"
To leave
Oooof....
I looked around at the walls I had painted. I looked at the garden we built, the backyard we crafted, the garage we worked on. I saw where we put our hands (and paws) in the cement. I looked at everything and saw the past 6 years with total clarity. While there was so much love, there was also a lot of pain. There were cycles, and circles, fights and endlessly never meeting needs. There was living different lives, and trying to live the same. There was constant adjustments and sacrifices. There were fragments of myself shattered around my home. In every place I saw improvement I also saw how much I had to force it to happen. I saw all the ways I while good intentioned manipulated things so it would work. I backed him into corners to apologize to me, and I was asking for something he couldn't give.
There was deep dishonesty and total betrayals. There was a fundamental lack of partnership. It was so dependent on me in a way that felt repulsive. Instantly while navigating those thoughts I saw that there was a lot of me fixing, cleaning, and clearing. There was happiness and laughter. There was good meals, and great friends. There was peace as long as there was isolation.
"Maybe we don't work in the real world"
Words spoken in anger years ago played on my head on repeat.
People mean what they say, and they mean what they do. I had spent years making concessions because I "knew" it was not what he meant. Now, I look at it and I see that it's always what he meant. All those phrases always were. "I'm shocked you're still here"
"I can't believe you put up with me"
"You deserve better than this"
Statements that were exactly what they are, but I read into them. Why? Because of love.
They say we can only love as deeply as we love ourselves, and in that became the problem. I was working so hard on loving myself, overcoming, and physically healing that I wanted EVERYONE around me to be on the same path. So I did what an unhealed Shay does and I poured myself into it more. If it's not working it means I need to do more? Right?
Wrong.
Simply so wrong.
If I could, I would go back 3 years ago and there's a part of me that thinks I would do something different, but honestly, I'm not sure I would.
Because June of 2024 Shay saw what 2021 Shay refused to see and now I couldn't do it one more time.
With that, I started terminating a 6-year-long relationship with the person I thought would be in my life forever. While we ebbed and flowed in the romance department I truly thought our friendship and partnership would always live on. Every part of my future had him in it, but I was holding on to an unhealthy view on where we were, and what I needed.
We are so often taught that longevity means a relationship is successful, and I no longer agree. Happiness is what is success to me, even if it ends. Even if ending it feels like you are losing a piece of your soul in the process. Ending can be just as much a success as beginnig.
Moving was a nightmare. I was alone, and flaring. I felt unsafe in my house, and uncomfortable around who used to be my best friend. They say hurt people hurt people, and I just got another front row seat to the pain someone else was feeling. Which perfectly articulated the part of the cycle I was choosing to end. I'm done being a punching bag for others emotions. Whether you are a friend, client, or lover, it's not my fault your feelings are they way they are and I will no longer be taking responsibility for them.
In navigating an already hard time in my life I came to the conclusion that I will always bet on myself, every single day. Because I show up for me in a way no one else can. I powered through. I turned on Marianas Trench and I packed.
And I packed, and packed. Until I looked around at the shell of a house I was living in and saw how much of Me was the home.
Then I cried.
I cried for the future, I cried for the past. I cried for the love lost. And I cried for the friendship gone. I cried because it wasn't what I wanted but it was absolutely what needed to happen. I cried for alibi and how scary it was for him. I felt like I was being ripped into 2 pieces, and half of me wanted to unpack everything and figure it out. Then the bigger version of me said no. If I want to be who I want to be, I need to do something I've never done. It's time to change, and all I can change is me.
I cried when I closed the door for the last time. I cried on the drive over to my new house. I cried as I sat there, but when I walked into my new home, I didn't cry.
That was unexpected.
On that first evening alone in my own space, with my own energy and the safety I can create for myself, I realized one important thing.
I've got me, and I know I can do it.
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