This is 40, Dear A.
“I intend to continue to live a very big life. Even if I don’t exactly know what that life will look like, I know it will be one full of love, of belonging, and many, many adventures. I know this because I finally know me. And that is the life I plan on living.”
Coming Back Up for Air
“…the reason is because I didn’t know how to. All I knew how to do was feel—all the raw emotions, hoping that at one point it would stop or I would have someone (new) to help me forget the hurt and pain the last person caused me. I think it’s only now, in the absence of chaos and distractions, that I’ve been forced to face it: the grieving of a relationship. And processing all of it—the good, the bad, what you need to take away from it, and what you need to truly, finally, let that person go, for good.”
The “In-between” Space
“All that said, this is still hard. And it takes a toll as I am, “wired for belonging and connection,” to quote Brené Brown. I still long for connection and love, so I am grieving someone, or the “what could have been” with this person. And as small as that is in the grand scheme, it feels like the moment I needed to finally share some of the things that have been weighing on my heart lately. “
Dear you,
"Life and love isn’t always, or ever, that black and white. And, maybe, instead…there is gray. I have found myself living in the gray—the unexpected, recently, and I don’t know how else to really speak to it. Other than to say, that life is never what you expect it to be. But it is here. Now, and now, and now. And while I may not have the life I, or others, ever expected, it is a fully lived life."
Dear 34 year old me
"...I wish you could see what I do now. Your big, beautiful heart was broken, so many times, but you found the courage to let him go (finally), and, in hindsight, we can finally see just how beautiful it still was, all of those moments—all of those highs, even when it meant there would be lows. You loved. Your big heart fell in love, and that’s so fucking beautiful."
Diary: Still just me
"The truth is it’s so much scarier and harder when you face things like this alone. Yes, I am strong, and resilient, and capable, but…BUT, I am also human, and it’s okay to feel this way. To feel lost, and like you just want to fall apart, even when life says, no, you can’t. Because there is no pause, no person to lean on. It’s just me. And I honestly never expected for it to still just…be me."
Diary: Heavy
"I don’t know what it is about this particular month, but I feel, and have felt, it’s been a particularly heavy, and just…hard month...
I feel that weight like a collective burden as I hold their words and feel what it is they must be going through right now. I don’t know why life has been so hard, for it is for so many right now, and I wanted to speak to it."
Dear you,
"I want to write to you, before I meet you, as I feel there’s so much I want you to know. About the girl before, the girl that was, before the woman you will one day meet. Tonight finally feels like a good time to at least start. Because tonight I just learned my last living grandparent, my grandma Mae, passed away today."
Diary: Being sick and Paris
"I am still grateful, and I know that it will pass, but it’s also bringing up all the emotions that come with being sick and single. It feels like this photo to me: a solitary path where there’s no one else to help me get there—past it, through it—other than myself. ...It’s a painful reminder, especially when you’re brought to your lowest, that you are all you have."
Diary: A new path
"I can see clearly all the days that have led me here, to the place I’m at now. It does feel like I find myself at a turning point, just like this bend in the trail—ready to leave this particular trail behind me. I’m ready to step forward, towards the things I am ready to have in my life."
Diary: My Christmas Card
"I rarely post when I don’t have something positive to post about, or unless I’m in a really positive place. Tonight I’m sharing, despite all of that.
There are so many pretty posts, so many picture perfect Christmas cards, and I’m not knocking you if you shared one, but this is just not one of those. This picture is of me, after an entire Thanksgiving spent alone."
2019: The Year of Love, Love Lost, and Paris
"I cried because the man I fell in love with was proposing to someone else. I cried because he was, in every single way, exactly what I wanted—at least in that moment of my life. And even though I can look back on us and see just how much he didn’t deserve the love I had for him, it is irrelevant to the simple fact that I did...love him. I loved him in a way that I have never known before...connected with him in a way I had never known before. I cried because this hurt me—seeing this, as it should. But it was also necessary. I knew this was the moment I had to let it all go."