Touch
on the crucial thing missing from my life
I’ve been writing extremely personally essays and poetry for some time now. Sharing it publicly has been frightening, though my anxieties have been lessening throughout the process.
Now, I find that when I write about subjects which would have given me a fucking panic attack to be open about previously, I’m able to share with only the faintest tightness in my belly, and a smallest worry I’ll be misunderstood. My heart does feel some anxiety as well, especially when I’m writing about specific people and I’m nervous about it.
Lately, I’ve been finding myself excited by extra challenging subject matter, essentially, upping the stakes. The more intimidatingly vulnerable a piece is, and the harder for me to write, the more excited I’ve been by the challenge — a bolder passion I’ve found available to wield in its creation. And frankly, the happier I am with the final product.
I’m going to take my time writing this. There will be lots of self-Reiki breaks coming here in my near future. Feels like an epic, this one.
It’s going to hurt a lot.
I long to be held. This is not new.
My marriage came to an end over it. While there were certainly other factors, my own commitment to the relationship broke specifically over my needs in this regard.
Love languages are a concept that resonate with many, me included.
Nothing has described my need for touch better than this: it’s the primary way I receive love.
Verbal affirmations, receiving gifts, feeling taken care of practically, and spending quality time with people — all important to me — they each feel like ingredients within the recipe for a healthy reciprocal relationship.
Still, the need for physical affection reigns supreme for me. It always has.
When I met the woman who would one day be my wife, we were very affectionate. Her, often remarking that she was not like this with others before. Never having been a touchy-feely kind of person.
Well, I definitely was and always had been. Even if I hadn’t had anyone to practice with. So, felt quite lucky that I was the exception to her rule.
Years pass. Things change.
Earlier stages of the relationship fade into more routine patterns, she returns to operate in her more usual way. We’re engaged.
I’ve been working up to it for some time. Finally, I talk with her, just explain how I feel like I initiate all the physical affection, that if I weren’t to go to her, hug her, sit next to her on the couch — we would never touch.
Touch is wonderful regardless of circumstances, it’s healing. Still, it hurts the heart when something so precious to you feels unnecessary to your partner. To have to ask for it repeatedly, to not receive it within the natural flow of the relationship, it’s a weight.
With her, even when I’d get the snuggle sessions initiated, accepting the little ding of pride to be the one going to her. It was often quite perceivable how drained they’d feel by the close contact after a short time. They would need to peel away and take some air when I’d felt like we were just getting started.
So, in the meek way the boy I used to be was accustomed to speaking for themself, I brought this issue up.
It was heard! What relief! She seemed to understand and recognize truth in what I’d said. I left the conversation feeling very optimistic — I remember that first one.
After a while I had to have a follow up conversation, where I admitted that it felt like nothing had changed, except for a few moments in the first week or so after our previous discussion. And after that, it seemed to me like we’d just fallen back into old patterns. Again, finding myself the initiator of all things affectionate.
In that conversation, I remember the resolution being that I would have to be patient as they worked to change their habits, being told that it wasn’t just a switch they could flip.
Totally fair! I would keep that in mind as we went forward.
It was a bit after our ninth anniversary when the relationship fell apart. Where a separation was decided upon.
In the many years after those discussions mentioned. We were stuck in a repeating pattern with escalating emotions on both sides. We’d have the same conversation turned argument over and over, months apart. Me, being sad, asking for this thing I need — to be touched on a regular basis without having to ask for it — her, feeling overwhelmed by the demands of this ask, perhaps recognizing that she didn’t have it within her to satisfy it. Hurt by feelings of not being enough, loving me as best she could, her defensiveness would most-often point the blame back at me.
Even if not a conscious mechanism in her mind. Even if it’s just a biproduct of our innate incompatibility that was becoming clearer and clearer. I was made to feel like I was being unreasonable. These revolving discussions, which went nowhere, were only making me sadder, and her feeling more unfairly put-upon.
Often, in the aftermath, I would genuinely be internalizing questions like these: What’s broken within me which causes me to not feel an abundance of love for myself? Why do I need to be held and touched this way? Why can’t I be happy with love in the way she has to give it?
Instead of accepting the incompatibility that was staring us in the face. We told lies to each other and ourselves.
There would be weeks where I trudged around our apartment like a touch-starved zombie. Hyper-aware of how I hadn’t received affection for an extended period of time, refusing to initiate contact for the hug I needed, because it made me feel so little to always be begging for it.
I was oft crying myself to sleep beside her, in such need.
To be clear. I love them and always will. They have been my best friend in this life, and I hope we’re able to reclaim that friendship someday soon. They sacrificed so much for me, as I did for them. In retrospect, it’s my feeling that we were both willing doormats for each other, who ended up building a relationship that didn’t really serve either one of us in the end. Also, people change.
Finally, after sometimes days of this moping around. I know — fucking Garett, let’s not even start — there would be a point where she’d ask what was wrong. Usually when I was doing something really pathetic, like standing there crying in the kitchen.
My answer was almost always, “I don’t know. I just need a hug.”
So, I’d get a hug, and I’d usually cry into it. Frozen, I wouldn’t ask them to change for me, anticipating the argument which would ensue if I was honest that I’d been waiting for them to hug me for days, knowing it would get put back on me as unfair expectations I had been holding over their head.
Even with that knowing, broken from this gauntlet, I would eventually have to ask again. And again. And again. Triggering the arguments I rightly knew the conversation would spark 90% of the time.
Never before have I understood the sentiment more — Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting things to change.
It all reached a tipping point when I began hormones, and she was pregnant at the same time.
Her need for space from snuggles increased — so uncomfortable in her pregnant body. Respecting my role as her partner and future co-parent, it became my goal to prioritize her comfort in all things. Snuggles and touch were not a priority.
Conversely, with the body-trauma of hormone replacement therapy, the surging presence of estrogen was causing this need for touch to skyrocket exponentially. Just being sore and scared and needing to be held. I was losing it, while refusing to put it onto her because of the pregnancy.
One night I’m making cookies in the kitchen. Putting icing on them. Things are so chill I decide to just let it slide out. Damn, this pregnancy has been hard on me. I’ve still been feeling that need for and lack of affection, but so amplified as I navigate my body’s transition, and she’s had to take care of herself first and foremost. In that moment, daring to ask if she’d might think to lay a hand on my shoulder more often — come give me a hug without me asking for it sometimes — same old thing.
You guessed it, fight predicated on their feelings about my needs.
Screaming ensued. She left, pregnant, going nowhere for hours in her car. Told me she wouldn’t have come back if she’d had anywhere else to go.
I’m left feeling totally helpless. Scared that this overwhelm she feels in pregnancy is going to carry into post-partum and parenthood. It had always been high-stress times, when relaxation was not abundant, where she didn’t have energy to be close with me. Which honestly, are the times I needed it most.
So, entering an era of stress called parenthood, I’m feeling very concerned that my needs will ever be something she has the energy to take care of or consider again. Especially since I’ve not felt them met for any extended period of time before in our relationship. Even when we had all the time in the world, by comparison.
When I bring that up, the response is to not hear me and make me feel naive. It’s kind of belittling. Pre-emptively telling me my expectations should be lower. Because of-course it’s going to be that way.
It took until my daughter was 10 months old for us to separate.
I needed to be held badly.
Even right now, I feel the need to be squeezed tight and allowed to fall asleep in someone’s arms whom I love. That’s all I’ve wanted for the longest time.
I remember telling my wife, even back then, that if I could be held tight for like a week straight — not literally, but to receive affection for a sustained period of time, in the way I’d always wanted — my neediness for this touch would be healed.
What I’m asking for, to be clear, is really not that much. A hug, a kiss, a hand on the shoulder, without prompting for it, on a regular basis.
To be surprised by physical affection that someone else has chosen to bestow upon me, because they care for me. That’s what feeling loved is to me. And I’ve never had it. I knew, if I could just get that kind of loving attention on me, for more than a cruelly short amount of time, the trauma and grief and sadness I had within from the lack of it throughout my life would dissolve.
Waiting too long. Leaving my wife when I was at my breaking point. Made it a mess. It made things extra painful. It caused me to make mistakes and be more incidentally hurtful to her than I would have ever hoped.
It meant I needed to start dating quicker than seemed reasonable or fair to her.
To her, I believe it felt cruel.
To me, it felt like trying to save my fucking life.
To Then Be Healed
To begin dating again, as a thirty-six-year-old in the middle of a gender transition, is an experience.
I came out of the gates enthusiastic and hopeful.
Anytime I saw somebody on the apps that said their love language was also touch I’d get excited, swiping hard on the other snugglers out there.
A couple weeks into this, I match with somebody who would end up being my first date. Before we even meet in person, we’re up late-night texting about preferred snuggle positions and I’m properly heart-achy for them.
They, like so many other people I’ve matched with, and have actually found myself excited about, missed that I was trans on my profile. So, when I realize that and communicate it, I’m incredibly nervous.
Unlike the majority of people I’ve been in this situation with since, they didn’t ghost me the moment they figured it out. It was new to them, but sure, why not try. They were only looking for a casual thing with me anyway.
I’m literally just separated. So, I’m not looking for something serious right away either. Feels synchronous.
The first date was stellar. Best first date I’ve been on, even still.
We get comfortable quickly, proceeding to be affectionate with each-other before long.
Over the next eight months this girl healed my heart many times over, just by holding me right, and being someone I respected a ton.
I remember distinctively, still, the first time they put their head to my chest. It felt like they were burrowing into my heart. I’ve literally never felt more healed in a single moment.
Throughout the relationship, which was off and on, and a casual thing. I had this repeating experience of discovering new depths of feeling in my heart, through their touch.
Most profoundly perhaps, one morning waking up in a cabin that I was lucky enough to be invited to. She’d rented it with her friends around Thanksgiving. It was the first and only time I’ve been in a truly cozy and safe, queer, found-family kind of space.
She rolled over in the morning and fell back asleep with her head on my chest. I’ve honestly never been happier in my entire life, than just lying there.
I was extremely aware in the moment that I wanted to soak in every second. So much that when I drifted off and came back — I was genuinely disappointed I’d fallen asleep.
It was right then I fell for them like I wasn’t supposed to. How, in fact, I’d promised them I wouldn’t.
Honestly, the rest of the relationship was composed of me chasing another morning like that, at least on my end. I can’t tell you how hard I tried to make it happen.
She used to send me home at night after we’d hang out, so she could sleep alone, see me crying and ask why. Not wanting to lay it all out, I would usually go with, “I just don’t want to go home.”
Which was true! And made sense. Things were a mess at home with my separation going full tilt into anger-trauma-mode. That’s not why I was crying though. I was crying because all I was thinking about was getting her head back onto my chest, wanting to stay right there to make another morning like the one at the cabin possible.
Even without repeating the exact experience. There were plenty more moments of healing affection with her. I meant it when I said she healed me over and over. Every time she held me and let me hold her, layers of hurt were expelled.
After so long believing that I was broken, and some kind of energy vampire, by the way my ex was so drained by my needs. To meet someone who worked the same way was a revelation.
I would commonly think on the phenomena of intense feelings I had with them and equate it to a feedback loop.
Two people who both need physical contact. Who love and feel intensely, that don’t get drained by holding another tightly. It was just more powerful than anything I’ve known. Cosmically profound affection.
All the while, I’m still dating. Having a fucking terrible time.
Everybody else sucks in the face of this person and the feelings I have when I hold them. Simply, nothing compares.
Despite seeing that clearly after months of dating them and others. They are not into me as an actual romantic partner. So, I have to keep looking.
Going on dates was brutal. I would meet people and sometimes kiss them. Fine people, no doubt. But I would cry on the way home, because my heart didn’t understand why we were looking. We’d found what it wanted.
No matter how hard I tried to compartmentalize my feelings, the way holding this person made me feel was game over for my heart.
Struggling with the weight of it all, as they simultaneously pulled away from me, I spoke my truth, and was an emotional mess when they needed space, driving her away from even wanting to be my friend.
Heartbroken, lost, saddest bitch ever. I didn’t even take a moment off before I’m back dating. It wasn’t even a real relationship, so, why should I give myself time to grieve it?
Also, despite the completely healing nature of those times I was able to hold this person. It was really sporadic. More short cruel bursts of the affection I’ve so long sought, as always. It was the not that week of being held I needed. It wasn’t enough to heal more than the first handful of saddened layers I have within me from an adult-lifetime being starved of the touch I’m seeking.
Regardless, I am grateful for that relationship. Even with the hurt. It freed me from attachment to my ex. It blessed me to know that it is possible to find someone who works the same way as me.
And so, for the next year, I looked.
Dating Fucking Sucks
Dating is the worst, and I know I’ve bitched about it endlessly, but especially as a trans woman. These days too, with the way everyone is using Poly as a substitute for Ho, it’s just another wrinkle.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll probably end up in a poly relationship. I date poly people. I am one at heart. There are just different kinds. I sync with folks who want a couple relationships in their life, because it makes sense to their heart romantically. Or perhaps, their marriage has turned into more of a platonic partnership, and they’re looking for a second to have more fresh adventures with. That’s so cool with me! I’m into it. I’ve got my daughter anyways, so, it’s not like I have all the time in the world. I want to develop a truly unconditional and unpossessive love with someone.
Alternatively, there are the poly people who just want a free pass to fuck the whole world. That’s not my vibe.
I’m here to be wooed. I want to feel special to someone. I don’t want to be fit into a batting order.
I’m the bitch you build your lineup around.
On top of the general suckage of being a trans woman dating, finding synchronously affectionate people has been nearly impossible.
Discovering that I hold people hard, intensely, and that person who made me feel so special did too, I now think one of the greatest reasons I’ve struggled, is because I’ve been determined to find something at least close to that.
I’d assumed, since the very first person I’d dated was such a win, it meant the whole world was filled with people like us. Who touched in this way.
In all the time since, I’ve found exactly one person who’s gotten close. Who’s made me think they had it in them to take me to similar places of the heart.
We’ll get to that asshole later.
The rest of the year was spent dating bi-sexual cis girls, mostly spoiled poly ones, who made me feel about as taken care of as their dish rag. Then also a drunk. Who was just the teasiest tease in the history of the world. And I don’t mean that in entitled sexual ways. I mean the first time I saw them — despite being pretty tipsy — they held me really good for about ten minutes, before an insane chain of events led to them smoking meth in front of me. I’m not kidding.
I would call that a bad end to the first date.
Despite my best interests, I’ve been really kind to that person. Repeatedly forgiving. However, the more I sit with the shit they put me through, the less compassionate I feel.
The sad truth is, I’m dying to be held by the right kind of person, and there’s something deep within their broken ass which compelled me. I’m still convinced the sober them, who I’ve never really met, would be a good match.
It took me about a year to figure out what was the same about all the people who I’ve actually been interested in.
They’re all on the trans-masculine spectrum. Even if loosely.
I’d not realized that was the thing.
There’s something about the electricity I’m looking for, that has to do with somebody who works like I do, but in reverse. Opposite pair kind of deal — even if it’s just on a subtle level — in their attitude or their style.
Wow, there’s something distinctly boyish about that gorgeous girl. That’s my vibe. That’s my guy.
They seem to be the ones who know how to hold me just right.
Which makes sense. It’s a unique life I’ve lived. It’s a unique trauma to hold, being a trans woman. To always feel different and excluded.
No matter how it expresses, someone having inborn knowledge of the trans experience helps forge a deeper connection, and more powerful affection.
All that to say. On top of the countless difficulties I face, I’ve found my heart stubbornly picky. So, it’s really all my fault.
Regardless, normal fucking snuggles won’t do anymore, because I’ve felt the entire universe on my chest.
Eventually, all these lessons led me to start looking for people who were specifically trans-masculine. Which, in turn, led me to someone who became very special to me for an incredibly short period of time.
Asshole
This one’s still raw. Clearly. The whole thing was such a mind-fuck.
I’m an eager bitch. I’m dumb.
They are really stunning. They’re very interesting and make me feel extremely special. Our conversations veer into the weird spirituality shit I’m into, and so effortlessly, which is new.
They are married, poly, with children. They’re on the asexual spectrum. If there’s one thing I learned from my time with that long-lost friend, it’s that an epic snuggle and kiss is all my heart really needs for love. So, I’m not concerned about their asexuality. Especially considering this would be a poly relationship, so, if I happened to find myself in need — that would be an option.
On the second date I give them Reiki.
I cried so hard. Just to be able to do that with someone I’m really crushing on, intentionally, was very special.
There’s something so cherished in the opportunity to offer people energy healing. When folks have let me do it, the general vibe, often through tears is — what is even happening right now?
I’m healing you, bitch.
Anyways… I love giving Reiki. A lot. Even more to people who I’m feeling close and romantical with. Although no romantic interest had ever let me do it before, apart from my wife, so, having that with this person was a very special moment.
We talked until like 4am. Holding each other at the end of the night, just a little.
It was the first time somebody had gotten close to having that touch. There was a lot of electricity.
However, it was them holding me to their chest instead, which was new for me. Nobody’s held me like that before. I was a fan of it.
A week later we did it again, and it was another amazing night. We danced and held each other and kissed, but they had to go at the end.
This bitch-ass literally knew exactly what I needed.
Saw it, said it.
Told me, “One of these days I’m going to come over and we’ll just nap together.”
Music to my fucking ears. We’d been spending the majority of our time getting to know each other in conversation. They’d been extremely welcoming to all of me, which was a new sensation. I felt taken care of emotionally in ways I was simply not used to. It’s like they showed me what I’ve always felt I deserved, but never before received — completely focused attention of loving care, in ways felt deeply, including through means of unprompted touch.
A couple days later they mention taking a trip out of town for their upcoming birthday and invited me to go with them.
We were already saying the ‘love’ words. And I meant it — I think they did too.
Even though I was in a financial crisis at the time. Finally, on my way out of the home I shared with my ex for so long, and already selling most of my assets. When I hear their own financial mini crisis means they can’t rent the place, I decide to sell all the shit. Everything that’s not completely necessary, so I can pay for the trip. Because a weekend away means a guaranteed chance to finally sleep in a bed with somebody who can hold me in the morning, which is what I’ve been chasing since the Thanksgiving before last.
Having moved out of my place, into an extended stay hotel, no plans for where to go — I was in despair.
The place was dreadful. Its smells gave me a headache. I was miserable, having moved into that hellhole the weekend before we were to go on our trip.
Their birthday was actually in the middle of the week, on Tuesday. But we were to go the weekend after.
Wednesday, we were able to see each other.
That morning, I get snowed in and have to work from ‘home’ — the extended stay hotel.
I have the worst day. Staring at my computer screen in this little box, with sounds of people in the rooms all around me, breathing in the stank, not able to go anywhere because the world is frozen over.
After the workday is over, I go on a little walk and come back to get in a bath.
They’re coming shortly after that.
By the time they arrive I’m dehydrated. I haven’t eaten enough. Despite the bath and the walk, I’m still feeling cooped up.
I’m so excited to go get in their car. We hug a little and I just fucking melt. It’s incredibly needed. I’d had a very traumatic weekend dealing with my final move-out and into this place which made me feel so desperate. I was doing it all alone and had about a dozen stress cries on moving day.
I was very happy to see them. Needed that hug.
We start driving and they’re hyped up. They have a lot to say, very high energy. I don’t communicate well that I need to get water and caffeine and food. Then they notice this look on my face, of being overwhelmed by the speed of their conversation.
I can tell they’re super triggered. They say as much. People not being able to keep up with them has apparently been a problem in relationships before. They tell me how they left the last person they dated for implying they were a lot.
They’d gotten really serious about things with me before, a couple times. I could see them locking up in their body. Old wounds. It always worried me when I saw it. Every time though, we talked it out, and things went back to great.
When I explained how I’d been feeling down and not taken great care of myself, but still really wanted to see them, knowing I would feel better in short order around them, and not be a bummer the whole time.
They got triggered again. They basically accused me of leaching off of their energy. The day after their birthday no less! Which is another thing they have trauma with.
We get some food and go back to my shitty hotel-thing. After we eat, I’m feeling one hundred percent better.
So, we talk it out. I feel heard that I was just in a really bad place with taking care of my body. We actually have some really sweet moments shared between us that night, precious moments.
They literally remarked to me before leaving how we were — just a day away from getting to sleep in together and snuggle all day.
Then they leave. And everything seemed great until I saw them walking out the door with a sour look on their face.
We messaged a bit the next day. In retrospect, it was a little stilted. Not enough to raise alarm though.
So, in the evening. I’m packing for the trip. I have my daughter. She’s chilling, watching Moana 2 while I’m filling my bag and literally texting them about how stoked I am to be taking off early from work the next day to leave and have this weekend together.
Voice note in response. Last night didn’t sit well. I took their energy. I disrespected their birthday by not bringing more positivity to the situation. They accuse me of lying to their face by saying it’s not taking energy to know you’ll feel better in the presence of someone you love.
They don’t hear me. I respond defensively.
They get really mean. Say things that sting so incredibly deeply to hear from them. They had been the safest, kindest person I’d ever been with, until this point where they just went at me as hard as they could and called the trip off.
After everything I’ve been through. The sagas. The time alone. Having the promise of this weekend. With a person who had the touch. At least enough. For that all to get ripped away so unfairly. For me to feel such a reflection of the bullshit I dealt with in my marriage. Where I was projected upon by trauma that was not mine for having feelings. It was too much.
I cancelled the rental for a partial refund and blocked them after they said the mean things. I didn’t feel like I could take more. And didn’t feel like I could go to that place I’d rented for the two of us alone and not be miserable. Unfortunately, this meant I would be in that hotel room all weekend, which was somehow even more depressing.
Dark voices don’t get me much. But I had a very dark night. And an even darker next day.
Heard some I’m going to fucking kill myself voices coming through, stronger than I’ve ever heard before.
Broken old parts of me that couldn’t handle this anymore. That’s the way I’ve looked at it the few times, through all this, where things have gotten so dark I’ve heard those kinds of thoughts in my head.
There were some moments early in 2024, after I lost that friend and was alone, which got that way for me. Then in the summer with Drunky Drunkerson. Then my own personal nightmare in the Fall. Finally, with asshole in the new year.
I see those dark voices as part of my ego — not the real me.
The real me is here for life. All of it. I believe this path I walk is of my making. My very own sick ass. But there are many old and limited ways of thinking still coded within me, which get broken by the tough things I’m walking through. They want to give up.
When I hear those voices speak. I say, go for it, to that part of me. Clearly, it’s something inside that needs to die, if it can’t handle the path my heart is leading me on.
The heart leads the way for me, always. Even when my mind tries to control things it can’t and gets sad.
It’s scary when that’s happening from inside of your own head. But we are not those voices we can sometimes hear. It’s simply not who we are. We are more than our limited, frightened minds.
I thank the Goddess my daughter was with me that night. But then again, also, maybe not. I was in that tiny place with her and wanted to scream a thousand times into my pillow but couldn’t.
It was a really tough night.
My daughter needed me to be solid, in this totally strange little hotel we were sharing together, and I’m wrecked with intrusive thoughts.
Regardless, we made it through.
I unblocked this person 24 hours later, after the saddest day in the world — the day we were supposed to leave — then sent them approximately five spread out messages over two weeks. Last one to their email because I knew for sure I wasn’t blocked there.
They haven’t spoken to me once. Final time I heard their voice was them being a fucking asshole. So… that’s why they’re asshole.
For them to kamikaze it all. Blow it up and then turn into a ghost. When they knew what I’ve been through.
Anyways, if you read this one day, Ash.
FUCK YOU
My apologies to the rest of you. That’s just where I’m at right now. Grieving — clearly a process.
Through this all, there has been one saving grace in my life. One reason to keep going. One person to hold and be held by, whom frankly, I don’t believe I’d be here without.
The resilience I have to persevere over these dark voices is fueled by the simple fact that I would never abandon my daughter.
Angels
My daughter is the sweetest human I’ve ever known. I’m so incredibly lucky to be her mom. She is astounding, a gift of the highest order, a human angel.
Purest light — truest smile — brightest heart.
However, she is not unique in this. Most parents see this same light in their children.
What they see is what we all have within us.
It’s the heart of us all. The source of love. That white angelic light we all touch when we reach into the divine.
It’s us. It’s a shared space of trust and contentment and healing from which we all originate.
That’s what I feel when I’m held by someone I love.
I wrote an essay a while back called What It Means to Love. Shortly afterwards, an insight came to me that I found myself disappointed to have not included.
Maybe my favorite explanation of love. Certainly, the best description of what it means to me.
When I love someone. It’s because they are a portal for me to seeing and feeling the light of source. The more I love someone, it’s just the more of a lens they are for the beauty of the universe to reach my eyes.
That’s a gift however you receive it, however you look at it.
I receive this gift best through powerful and affectionate touch. Given freely, with abundance.
So, that’s what I continue to search for.
It’s what I feel my body needing; a cocoon of connection with another, to find that light with, and heal my lonely heart.
This is why despite all the many traumas I’ve endured and written about in this and so many other writings, I continue to search, I continue to date. Because I’m not broken. I don’t need to be fixed. I’m not asking for too much.
I already love myself.
It’s because I love myself that I know I deserve what my heart most wants. It’s why I’m willing to endure all this if it leads me into the arms of someone who can help me feel better one day.
I’m not wrong to need that person. It’s okay that I don’t feel able to love myself all the way to healing alone.
That’s allowed.
My person will come for me someday. And they’re going to be lucky as hell. Cause once I get held right for a week. They’ve won the fucking lottery.
I’m taking a little forced vacation from writing essays after this to catch up on some reading and put my feet up a bit.
One more post regarding Spring intentions in the works. But that should be it for a while. These have been taking a lot out of me and I’m going to be putting that energy straight into chillaxing for a minute. My cry/write/work/life balance has been a little front-heavy lately. I’m also excited to pour more time into my book.
Plus! I’m about to start to date again. So, I might have more trauma to write about shortly. 🙃
Thank you all so much who have been reading. I can feel you out there. I’m very grateful for you.
I’ll be back soon.
