If you’re just tuning in…
Hi!!!!!
Thanks for stopping by!
I hope you have a good day!
Also, let me catch you up on my most recent theme…
I’ve decided for the trillionth time to rehash the dating debacles of my twenties.
Maybe decided isn’t the right word. More like, was called to.
And, as I said in a previous post, I have a superpower!
And that superpower is: connecting to painful memories from the past. Being able to picture exactly where I was. Exactly how I felt at that very moment. From going on the elliptical and blasting Michael Jackson after being told that my father wasn’t going to come out of the coma after all, to watching Parks and Rec all night long because I couldn’t sleep because I was feeling obsessed and depressed over some guy I was dating.
Pick a shitty event, any shitty event…
And I will flashbulb memory my f**** way there (was that the correct number of asterisks?…)
Ok, well this time around, I’m kind of excited. This time around I have some more distance from it all. You can call it a bird’s eye view. Actually, I would love if you call it that since my full name is Gila Faye/Faiga Gila which means Little Bird, so I think of myself as a bird in a lot of ways! #spiritanimal
Anyhoo, this time around I’m excited because as I feel the pain, I am also getting under it. Understanding more deeply what caused it.
So here’s the thing.
When I dated in my twenties, other than the few exceptions where I had healthy dating experiences, for the most part I was a hot mess.
No, I didn’t date non-stop for 10 years as a hot mess. Sometimes I was single (not often enough according to one dear friend of mine…) but it was a pattern I kept coming back to: go for the guy with whom I have physical chemistry even if the emotional groundwork isn’t there, or can’t really be there realistically speaking.
Most guys I blocked for a while in the beginning knowing where it would lead. But alas, months later, I opened up to going out with them. And more often—staying in (if you know what I mean ;)).
Even though this only happened with a handful of guys (ok, two handfuls), each situation was so emotionally dramatic and at times drawn out, that I’ve never let go of it.
I still hold onto the memories. The pain. The regret. The initial excitement. The regret. The regret.
And did I mention the regret?
For the first time though recently I shed tears for the girl who went through all of this.
Like just feeling the pain of the complexity of it all. Of wanting that connection. Of relishing it. Of having it taken away because we all knew it wouldn’t and couldn’t last (even though I was dang good at writing up the narrative in my head that it could!).
I’m glad I’m crying over it. Crying is healing.
I think about how happy and excited I was with the person. I also think about how shitty I felt when I wasn’t in their presence. I became an empty shell of myself. I gave over so much of myself without the container of healthy intimacy. And I didn’t realize it until a few days after, but man did I feel shitty. Like for a long time too!
I mean I was still working full time, helping my nutrition patients get healthier. But something was missing. My joie de vivre. There was an inner emptiness I carried with me. The joy I usually get from connecting with and helping people was much subdued.
And don’t even me started on my creative hobbies. Those talk a backseat as well, as I poured my creative energy into the guy. Into helping the guy, caring for the guy, and the most creative energy of them all—being physically intimate with the guy.
I became a moon, reflecting the guy’s light.
I was no longer a sun, shining and thriving as my unique self.
A mentor I had years ago told me that all of creativity is connected. That sex is an act of creativity, as is painting, and music, etc. I suppose this is what lay the backdrop for me, albeit perhaps subconsciously, when I decided in the summer of 2014 that the only way for me to get out of this dating funk was to be pursue the things that made me happiest and most fulfilled. I did stand up comedy. I made weekly dance videos. I went to the beach every weekend.
I lived my most creative, most sensual life.
I wanted to become so big in who I was, shine so bright, be so true to myself and so fulfilled in my favorite activities, that I wouldn’t feel the desire to become someone else’s moon.
In this journey of mine, I am beginning to wonder:
Perhaps the very bleeding heart that connects me to others is that same bleeding heart that connects me to my soul’s expression and creativity.
Mindful Nuggets 