P.W.

When I was 19, I became best friends with a guy I worked with. A few months later, we started dating. Some more months later, he asked me to marry him and I said “yes”. There was no planning, much less, any conversations about being married; just what he thought was spontaneity. It was hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that someone felt they loved me so much that they wanted to be with me permanently.  I didn’t have any clue how I was going to be someone’s wife, but because I loved this guy, I was willing to learn how to make something last forever. I was able to visualize what the rest of my life could have looked like; it was scary, but I felt safe thinking I’d have a constant.

Fast forward seven months, namely, the day of my 20th birthday: The date was set for March. I had purchased a dress and several wedding decorations. The venue and caterer had been booked, and the photographer was confirmed. Guests were contacted, the wedding party was picked, and the two of us had set plans to move in together within the next coming months. All of the pieces were in play, until he suddenly decided he didn’t want to get married anymore. I felt blindsided, crushed, and incredibly foolish that I had put so much faith and certainty into someone’s cursory promise. I was wrestling with a range of different thoughts, feelings, and questions in my heart and mind: anger, sadness, shame, denial, confusion, betrayal. Where was I going to live? Why would someone propose marriage to me, if they themselves weren’t ready? How could I ever trust someone’s word again, let alone, trust that they wouldn’t retract it? How and why would someone who claimed they loved me just suddenly up and leave without batting an eye?

I didn’t know where I was going from here, so I leaned on my family. My dad, mother, and brother helped carry me through the hurt, and encouraged me to see beyond “the now”. Because I wanted to come out of this pain in the most graceful way possible, I had to change the questions I was focusing on. Instead, I started asking myself, “How am I going to heal from this?”. I knew I had to sit in the hurt for a while and honor my feelings by not minimizing or dismissing them. I allowed for space to be honest with myself; my soul felt heavy. I knew that I needed to be surrounded by people and settings where I didn’t need to hide feelings of sadness or discomfort. 

I consider closure an inside job. As much as I wanted an apology, a dignified meeting of minds, or a final conversation, I knew I might not get it- which I didn’t. I didn’t share my story on social media because it was emotionally taxing to talk about, I carried shame with me about having failed at something solemn, and I didn’t want to warrant my experience to scrutiny or varying hypotheticals. Yet even still, a lot of people shared their unsought thoughts and opinions, both during my engagement and after it ended. Disappointingly, many people who I expected to show up for me, didn’t turn up in the ways I’d hoped they would. Most reacted as if they were walking on eggshells when I was around, and that I’d become unhinged by simply speaking about my breakup. Although I understood that it was a special circumstance that not everyone would know how to react to, many of my friends failed to simply check in or even acknowledge what happened, and the underwhelming amount of support I received from non-immediate family members really made me feel like I was dealing with this completely alone. Be that as it may, despite the fact that I was in an emotionally fragile state, I remained mentally resilient.

 After several months of trying to process what I might’ve done wrong and what I could’ve done differently, I realized that the end of the engagement had nothing to do with me. My ex had come from a family that had a multi-generational pattern of marrying extremely young, and I believe he unknowingly felt the stress and pressure of carrying on that same pattern, hence his decision to jump ahead several crucial steps. I think in light of disagreements, he realized being married would be hard work and means more than just a piece of paper- that is money is just a piece of paper, but you get up every day and work hard for it. As for my piece, I failed myself by becoming so engulfed in being the perfect person for my partner that I lost sight of who I was in his shadow, and began to censor out very real feelings and attributes about myself such as waves of depression, anxiety and sensitivity. In doing so, I was dishonoring myself but not speaking my truth. At any rate, I went on to realize that real love won’t let you lose sight of yourself while seeking joint happiness, it’ll invite you to bring ALL of you along for the ride.

I have to say that I don’t believe that we’re supposed to all live on the same timeline and carryout identical destinies. Who’s to say you can’t marry young, or even stay single until your forties? Who’s to say that you have to attend college to be successful? Who’s to say that every woman’s destiny is to be a mother or a wife? We don’t all want the same things out of life, and that’s okay. I wanted to believe that the end of one story, could lead me to the fresh start of another. For this reason, I decided to quit my job, and move more than four hours away to San Luis Obispo, a city that was completely new and unfamiliar to me. Here, I’ve met several special people that make me recognize the person I can be, and who love the person I am right now.

To women that may feel similar grief, it’s okay to let yourself be sad, it’s okay to have ever-changing feelings about what happened, and it’s also okay to move on whenever you’re ready. Telling your story, no matter in what capacity, is a radical act of healing, especially if your reality has been denied or you’ve been conditioned to protect the feelings of others at the expense of your own. Keeping myself busy by reconnecting with activities and people that I loved, and spending time with myself so I could properly process my feelings and thoughts added value and promise to my days. I learned that avoiding feeling your emotions will only drag out the healing process, and unresolved trauma will continue to show up in other areas of your life. It may be true that crying doesn’t solve things, but we don’t cry to solve- we cry to release. Undoubtedly, people who are unsure of you, do not deserve to have you. It sometimes takes a while to find it again, but your happiness doesn’t leave with them, once the relationship ends. You’ve been shown how ecstatic and alive you can get, it was always all within you, and it’s still there, if you want it.