cathleennguyen-blog

[cathleennguyen-blog]

Being strong on my own time.

     Everyone takes their own time to grieve... I have recently lost a relationship. Though they’re still around and it comforts me knowing this, they’re also not really around. I know it hurts very much because there’s a constant weight in my heart and a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

     If we’re gonna talk about zodiac signs then I’m a cancer. Which primarily means that I’m quite sensitive, emotional, intuitive, and insecure. The last word doesn’t need to define me forever, but those descriptions definitely describe the current me on February 16, 2021. For all of my life so far, my sensitivity and emotional side has frequently gotten the best of me. They are often the cause of me becoming overwhelmed with my own feelings, and I let myself get carried away with them. It’s the cause of overthinking, lashing out, and other reactions. 

     What if I turn my sensitivity and emotional side into something extremely powerful and inspiring? What if I stopped seeing it as an annoyance or a weakness, and instead use it as a way to deeply empathize with people? To meet someone halfway and tell them I feel and see you... I understand you. That’s all everyone needs to hear, as long as they’re human beings. I don’t think I realized how powerful I can be with the fundamental qualities that I have until just now. Merge these two qualities of me with my intuition, and I can be of service to those around me. I can even be of service to myself, which is what I need the most at this moment. Sometimes I look at myself from a third person view and I see that I have so much fucking love to give to others, but often I forget to give it to myself sometimes. Several people are hard on themselves, but my god was I hard on myself. Being hard on myself did nothing but push me back a step further from healing, and it would potentially alienate me from those that care about me; in other words, it did no good. 

     This breakup is going to either break me or make me unstoppable. When monumental moments in life make you choose to either heal or crumble, you truly have control to pick your destiny. I have no doubt that I will feel broken temporarily in the beginning, and maybe even during random times after I THINK that I’m over it. However, I will not stop living my life because I truly don’t have much time left in this world. I want to experience giving my romantic love to someone that truly wants it. Just because this person wasn’t in a position to date and/or they maybe saw me as someone that cannot handle them, doesn’t mean that I wasn’t good enough. My good friend told me today that the right person will just get you, and they won’t hesitate to help you pick up your baggage. I truly did everything that I could in this relationship... and I frankly deserve better. They were simply not in a position to be romantically involved with someone, and if they actually were then it was their loss. I know I gave them all of the love that I had in me, and they even knew that I never took them for granted. I even reflected on myself and planned to improve in a short period of time for myself and for the relationship that I shared with them; I researched some things and chatted with my friends so that I can learn how to better help the person I was in a relationship with. I was fucking devoted till the end. What else could I have done above that?

     I just want to sit with myself at this moment. Be present with my pain and how I’m feeling, and not judge myself for feeling the way that I do. A part of me still blames myself for the relationship getting to this point, but at the same time I’m sure that the other person knew what they were doing. They know that they have to stand with this decision that they made. And like I said, I gave my all to them... and they don’t want it badly enough. So instead of giving the love to them, I’ll give it to myself. It will just take some time for me to transfer that love to myself. 

     I still miss you and I will always cherish you. But I should think about me now. 

[cathleennguyen-blog]

Losing a Love

     This is the most pain I’ve ever endured so far in the 23 years that I have lived on this earth. I didn’t know something could hurt this bad. I thought I have been a pretty strong person for the most part, but the world has a funny way of humbling you. It really doesn’t help that I’m a sensitive person.

     When I say losing a love, in my case I mean that I can no longer love someone the way that I did for a little over 6 months. I can be friends with them and give them support in the future after I allow myself to heal, but I can’t romantically be involved with them. We have no bad blood towards each other whatsoever, but I can’t help but feel a little mad and frustrated about the way that things turned out. There are things I want to ask them, but one of the things this relationship has taught me is that I cannot always seek out answers. Seeking out answers may only cause more confusion or more pain... sometimes it’s truly not worth pursuing. Seeking out answers will not do me any good in this case, because no matter what they are no longer my person. The even sadder thing is that the primary reason why we cannot date anymore isn’t because of something either of us did; it’s because of what’s happening in their life. They’re so overloaded with working towards their future and they’re in the middle of figuring out how to even process something unfortunate that happened towards the end of last year. It’s not their fault that they need this time alone. I’m actually really glad that they were able to figure out that they cannot handle a relationship at the moment and they can see that they cannot control the fact that their personal life will inevitably hurt me. They can’t control the fact that they are sad all the time and that they cannot give romantic affection in any form... Knowing all of this doesn’t make it hurt any less for me though. 

     “At least you can still talk to them in the future and there’s no ill will”. Sure. That’s true, but is that what I need to hear right now? No its not. The primary reason as to why I am hurting so much right now is because I don’t have the status that I was so proud. I don’t have the status of being their girlfriend anymore, I have the status of being the friend. This is not to say that I think romantic relationships are more important than platonic relationships. However, I’ve only known how to love this person romantically... We didn’t start out as friends. So I’m in between these thoughts of knowing that I’m still fortunate enough to have them in my life as a friend and being upset that I can’t have them the way that I want to. Both thoughts are valid and true, but they sort of go against each other.

     This whole experience has been exhausting because I am the type to rip off the band-aid. I burned the six month letter I wrote to them, I burned the valentines day card that I never finished. I threw away a stuffed animal that I gave them, that once represented me being there for them even when I’m not there in person. I deleted all of the photos I had together with them, the only photos I have left are the ones I took of them on my professional camera. I deleted the conversation I had with them on iMessage and Instagram. I did that all in a matter of 5 days. It’s fucking exhausting and draining and reminding and painful and devastating. 

     I naturally expected, and at the same time didn’t expect, for them to show some sort of sign that a part of them didn’t want to end what we had. I wanted to see that they still had feelings for me and that this was difficult for them. The last day I saw them to return their hoodies/tshirts, they were just happy the whole time. Maybe their intention was to not ruin the mood during the (possibly) last time that we saw each other in person, to make this as painless as possible. But I feel like it really did more damage than it did good, because now I’m left with this feeling. This feeling that the past 6 months meant nothing to them, that everything I put into the relationship wasn’t important enough for to grieve over. But I always have to remind myself that they have been stoic for the past couple of months. They are stoic not because they have feelings, but because they have too much right now. To let themselves feel everything they’re feeling feels dangerous and crippling, so instead they choose to hold it in. Holding it in is their new reality, because once they don’t hold it in they just might lose all the strength they have left to keep going. It’s like a very thin string representing their strength is holding together two mountains: sanity and reality. Some days that string has probably broken and they broke down with it, isolated themselves, condemned themselves for not being able to holding it together. 

     I wanted to be able to have the status of being their romantic lover, initially because I wanted to take their pain away. This was a mistake, and I realized that instead of taking the pain away, I should instead sit in the pain with them. Give them the escape that they so often needed, help support them on the days that they cannot help themselves. I realized all of that too late, because during the time that I told them about that epiphany, they were already on the road of breaking up with me. I also want to be their girlfriend because I constantly wanted to be updated on how their life is... they replied to me every hour, while with everyone else they replied to them once every other day. Now I can’t have that, and I have to be comfortable with them treating me as a friend... something that I will have to get used to. This shit really hurts man.

     I already think about how much it would fuck me up if I saw them dating someone else while they’re still trying to grapple the things that they’re dealing with. It would truly make me feel like I was not good enough, strong enough, understanding enough.. when I really did try my best. It would hurt to know that my best is not enough for someone that I genuinely loved and cared for. How disappointing would that be. I try to not think about it but I really can’t help it. 

     I have to skip every sad song I hear or else I am literally guaranteed to start crying. The song doesn’t even have to be relationships (though often they are) for me to become upset, it could just be the beat or the sadness of the lyrics. I can’t be on social media because every now and then there are sad videos or even happy videos of couples, they both make me sad. The only songs that make me feel good are songs that talk about feeling powerful or unbothered, make me feel emotions that are the polar opposite of how I’m actually feeling inside.

     Speaking of polar opposites... this is how I know I have never felt this intensity of suffering in my life. This emotional suffering is affecting my physical health. I lost 5-10 pounds in the last month and I have no doubt that I’m going to lose more; I’m already a skinny girl so this is pretty concerning. My stomach feels empty and hungry but this sick feeling overpowers it. The sick feeling of losing something I treasured so much and for them to possibly not care about what we had. It makes me lose my appetite. Sometimes I want to eat, then I take a few bites and I can’t eat anymore. I feel like the most simple tasks are daunting, like going outside and speaking to people I’m comfortable with, like doing laundry, washing the dishes, taking out the trash. But it’s funny because I see myself being more kind to strangers and checking up on my own friends... and it’s all because I do not want anyone to feel pain. I feel so much pain that I want to protect everyone from it, and I want to do everything I can to be the opposite of pain. I want to give out so much love because it’s the only thing that’s keeping me grounded on this earth at the moment. It’s comforting to see that I still have love when I’m experiencing so much pain, that I’m choosing to not go down the dark path of casting everyone away because of how much all of this hurts. I can either become stronger from this or I can crumble from it... I already know which once I’m going to choose every single day. 

     This person will always have a piece of my heart, and I have no shame in saying that... though sometimes I feel petty and I wish that they didn’t. However, I don’t want to harbor any hate or ill feelings in my heart. This is for the best, and yes it still hurts but it could have been worse if we kept going. Part of me hopes that they would want to get together in the future when we are both settled down, but I cannot endlessly hope for that or expect that. I cannot ask them if they’d be down to date later, because they won’t know the answer to that. And frankly, neither do I. Life really goes on, but that doesn’t mean that what I had with them wasn’t beautiful, They deserved every ounce of love that I gave them, and I would gladly give them more but they need to do this by themselves. We never know what the future holds. 

     Remind yourself that this pain will not be this intense forever. Remind yourself that fortunately you still can have this person in your life as a friend. Remind yourself that you are still special to them. Remind yourself that you have people who love and support you. Remind yourself that everything you feel is okay, and to not judge yourself for feeling whatever you’re feeling. Remind yourself that whoever you end up dating and marrying will be worth the wait and pain. Remind yourself that you are enough... especially remind yourself of that please. You can get through this, you are strong enough and I know that you have yourself.