This Week's Drama: Healing

this too shall pass as long as my current source of external validation does not.

I’m writing this from Seattle, WA and…. not to be dramatic, but almost exactly ONE YEAR AGO TODAY, I was also in Seattle.

Prologue: Last January, my ex-boyfriend broke up with me (random!) and the next day my beloved cat Cookie fell deeply ill (he’s fine now!) and what followed was a depression the depths of which I would not totally understand until I did some *brace yourselves* trauma and inner child work to forgive myself and others for the attachment wounds and childhood beliefs that have been subconsciously guiding my behavior this whole time. Ugh. Okay so my ex was playing the role of my dad, basically. VERY UNIQUE!

But I was not aware of that last February when, after my cat healed and my brain worsened, my friend said “just come to Seattle” and since I was unemployed, I put Cookie in a carrier and relocated to the Pacific Northwest for almost a month. I think either the bible or Jessica Simpson’s memoir says something along the lines of “wherever you go, there you are” and boy, there I was. Still taking thirst traps, sending dramatic text messages, posting dramatic instagram stories that ran the gambit from “look how much fun I’m having” to “look how irreparably damaged you’ve left me”, cutting off contact, restarting contact, getting tattoos, dying my hair, and crying and crying and crying.

I was also having a lot of conversations with my female friends and therapist and their words were seeping in, no matter how much I thought I didn’t believe them at the time - “this isn’t really about him, he is not what matters here, your mental health is, and you have to learn to be enough for yourself, love isn’t supposed to feel this bad, this too shall pass, alright enough already, okay, come on, we don’t want to talk about it anymore, you need to move on”.

Not to get too earnest on Substack of all places, but I’m truly so grateful for my friends who have been through so much and learned to be more themselves and more loving despite it all. I feel like just being around them somehow plants these seeds of wisdom in me that grow and eventually become intuition or a gut feeling that eventually allows me to become more myself too. I am proud of how resilient my belief in love is, and part of that I know comes from being loved by these people, whom I admire so much.

And yesterday, one year later, I felt deeply empowered returning to Seattle, this place that contained so much pain and yet so much HEALING for me. I remembered what a dark place I was in last February when I used the plane wifi to send crying selfies to my friends. I barely recognize her! Who is she, that girl who scheduled, canceled, and then scheduled, and then canceled a nose piercing multiple times? I don’t know her but I can bravely say that now, I LOVE her.

I told my friend, with a knowing smile, that I’d like to actually walk by the Air BnB I lived in last February. Sort of to close the book on that sad chapter of my life. I was but a girl then. And now, as a woman who LOVES herself and NEEDS NO ONE, I can look back fondly on what got me here.

And then, my crush didn’t text me back.

It happened so fast… one minute, we were texting. The next minute… we weren’t? Ah, the fragility of the human experience. I sent him a picture of me in my outfit for the night, and he didn’t respond. A reasonable amount of time passed, and my friend and I got on the light rail to go to dinner, and then we sat down at the restaurant… and it had been two hours without a response and I found myself… suddenly gripping onto my “healing journey” with all the strength at my command. Desperately grasping for phrases Glennon Doyle has posted on her instagram stories. Searching my memory for things my therapist has said, but what was she even ever talking about? Asking me where I felt this in my body? And whether this came from a young place?! I DON’T KNOW AND NONE OF THAT MATTERED NOW.

I was in a crisis. Three hours had passed. Three hours in which my crush could have been hit by a bus, had his phone stolen, or worse, lost interest in me?! I was spiraling and I needed an ally to stay afloat. I needed to externalize my feelings to my friend and admit that it’s very possible the serenity and peace of mind I arrived with at the airport were not solely due to my inner child work and maybe, potentially, could also have something to do with the fact that I had a crush to text. You know, there really is something about being told you’re beautiful by someone you’re attracted to, that makes you feel beautiful, and the media should consider being more honest about that.

No response. The world around me suddenly felt colorless, grey, bleak… “what is the meaning of this errand we call living?” I asked myself as I made my friend text me to make sure my phone was still working. “You reaaaaaallly thought things were turning around for you, huh?” I laughed at my own naivety, as I checked my crush’s tagged photos on instagram, truly expecting some sort of grainy black and white security camera image to show up of him at a bar, talking to some other girl - a freeze frame of the moment it happened. The moment God laughed at the plans I made and said “I curse you to hades, you guileless whore, you’ll never get to post a #tbt to your wedding, not ever!”

No such image surfaced. No response came. I rode next to my friend in an Uber, trying to calmly explain how even if his phone was stolen, it’s not really an excuse because like… why not log into instagram on web browser and just hey, maybe send me a message saying “my phone is gone but my crush on you still remains, stronger than ever, and nothing could ever change that and nothing will ever be bad again.”

No response.

We got back to my friend’s house, with still no response.

I broke out in hives.

No response.

I got into bed.

No response.

Somehow, eventually, I fell asleep with my phone right next to my face, and when I woke up…

………. my crush had responded with a perfectly reasonable explanation.