Hi loves…
Happy New Year! How are we doing?
2023, what a year? Is anyone else surprised, they made it out alive?
The whole year felt like a struggle to me. I was stuck in survivor mode the entire year, except for maybe the last 2 weeks of it. Yesterday, I did a reflection on the year to release it, and sincerely something big happened to me every single month. Some big, good events while others not so positive.
January – Met Zach
February – 4k in debt from taxes
March – Zach returns & my Birthday
April – Decide to leave Key West
May – Leave Key West. Moved home.
June – Put all my belongings in a 10 x 15 storage unit, only filled up a quarter of it. How do I own so little at this point in my life?
July – Headed West
August – Started a part time job
September – Let go from said job
October – Travel: WY, MT, ID, UT, PA, TN
November – Back to Key West, found one job, and fell into a second one.
December - Started my third job and feverishly applied to remote positions.
It seems like yesterday I was at a friend’s wedding, had decided to quite my last catering job from 2022, and was days away from meeting Zach. All I wanted to do at that time was make enough money in the Spring to pack up my things and leave for the summer. Travel out west via a van and enjoy my life. I didn’t know what it would hold, or what I’d find there, or how in the hell I’d pay for it. But I craved the open road, alone.
Instead, I meet Zach. He led me out west. We traveled together to more states than I could’ve imagined. It wasn’t the solo travel I’d imagined, but it was wonderful. I’m still wrapping my head around planning a life together, as opposed to planning my life. I’m working on romanticizing our life together instead of daydreaming about life alone.
It feels weird. I’ve always loved being able to move effortlessly. Being able to decide I’m leaving a place then packing up and moving within a month or two, leaving behind an entire life for something new. That’s been my MO since 2018. I’ve astonished people with this ability. I’ve been admired for it. Now I feel it’s no longer a part of me.
Now travel, major moves, daily life, needs to be ran by my significant other. I have someone to hold me accountable to every little dream I dream and check in on its progress. I’m grateful. I’m thankful, yet there are times I miss me.
I miss traveling alone. I miss planning my days, weeks in advance. I miss not having to run things by anyone else. I miss daydreaming about solo adventures, a grand life alone.
It’s so bizarre after a decade of desperately wanting a serious relationship to fix all my problems, to years of working on myself alone, ended with a year of blissful singlehood, to finally be in this place where I’ve found my person. Even typing that out feels wrong, difficult because what if it doesn’t work out? It’s been a year, and I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. For me to say something that’s too much. For me to put a boundary in place he won’t respect. For me to speak my needs only for him to gaslight me into thinking I’m asking too much. For me to fantasize about a wild idea only to be met with a “be realistic” talk. For me to be too much. For me to be not enough. I’m simply waiting for him to leave so I can go back to the life I knew.
Very few talk about this. How do you work through the unconventional things in life. Most women don’t get to a point in their life where they are happy alone. Or they are so happy, they simply don’t talk about it. These women are only talked about amongst friends that don’t understand how someone could be so happy, so at peace flying solo.
Yet, it’s where I was at. I had gotten to the point of annoyed if someone tried to set me up on a date with some guy, they had just met that would be perfect for me. Normally this meant said guy was also single. I happily declined dates from men who took my easy conversational skills as a saleswoman to mean I was interested. I had created an identity around it.
Then I met Zach. Things flowed. Things went slow and fast at the same time. It was easy to be with him. It was easy to connect with him. Things changed. Before I knew it, he was helping me pack up my life in Key West for us to go out West together. Staggered, yet still together. Once again, I was losing an identity right before my eyes, and I couldn’t even see it. I turned around and a year later my whole life is simply different.
At the end of every year, I do this challenge through a program called To Be Magnetic. It’s a series of journal prompts and guided meditations for you to get into the depths of your soul and level up your self-worth and life. I’ve started this challenge around Thanksgiving every year for the past 4 years. Key word there started. Last year I almost completed it. This year I did.
In the last week of the challenge, we are expected to let go of our previous selves. The person we were prior who got us to where we were. To understand, they were beneficial for a time, yet in order to move forward, to grow, to be our most authentic self they were no longer necessary. The person I had to let go of this year, was the woman who was terrified of commitment. Maybe you don’t see a connection between always leaving, moving, changing and a fear of commitment, but a promise you for me there was.
I made leaving, changing look easy because it simply was easier than opening my heart up again to a career, to a person and being let down. If you always have one foot holding the last door open you never have to worry about an exit strategy, but you’re also never fully in the present. I found myself never fully satisfied with where I was in the present moment. I was always looking to where I was going instead.
I was the girl, the woman always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Always thinking things being easy, in the flow was too good to be true. Never fully loving where I was because something in the future was better. Thus, never fully committing to the now.
Maybe this sounds like you? Maybe you have no idea what I’m talking about?
Regardless, after a year of some super-fast change, growth, and challenges by spending the last 6 months on the move without some place to call my own. I needed some time to say goodbye to the girl I was. The one who was afraid of commitment because it was the only way she knew to protect herself from repeating the same patterns of her 20’s that hurt her so deeply. The one who’s plan B was simple, leave.
I said goodbye to her. I thanked her for getting me this far in life. For keeping us safe for so long. For pushing us to make the big scary changes that built our confidence to rely simply on ourselves. I thanked her, and I let her go. I told her she could rest now. It was time to change, to be different. To hold different energy in our lives. To trust that life is going to work out in our best interest, we don’t always need plan B. The other shoe isn’t going to drop because it’s already on the ground walking to the life of my dreams.
Is there a habit you need to let go of? Something that got you to where you are now, but you’re no longer that person?
Can you let them go? Or maybe at least let your guard down?
Try writing a letter to the younger you that created the protection in a time of need. Let them know it’s safe now. You can trust again. You can take your foot out of the door. It’s kind of hurting by now anyways, right?
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