Venting

Do you ever just... want to escape? Let go? Rewrite the narrative?

I'm alone at a bar, doing some thinking.

I've spent too many years bending and shaping my life around romantic relationships. To be fair I I also had several years solo, and I fought against the silence so hard...I wish I had embraced it. Indirectly though, I did. I grew, I flourished. My pain, loneliness, it got turned into art. I connected with so many of you on Instagram, or here or elsewhere. Sitting with oneself is hard. When you're younger you fight it. Now I crave it.

I struggle to balance the solo hustler mindset that is such a vital part of my story. I grew up in a poor and rural place, and pulled myself up by my bootstraps so to speak. I made and broke myself a few times. I rewrote the story more than once. Well, I wrote a plot twist, at least.

I got used to survival mode. It's been hard to know when I'm being too nice, too lenient, too naive...versus too harsh or untrusting. I'm introverted and extroverted - I gain my energy from others at times, but also from within at other moments.

I guess to frame this, I think about attachment theory (if you're not familiar, please do a google search). Now I probably fall on the avoidant end of the spectrum, which is hilarious to me because I spent the majority of my life on the opposite end, the anxious attachment style.

To barely skim the surface of this subject,l (and I do not claim to be qualified to explain this properly), anxious attachment people tend to be "clingy" and wear their heart on their sleeve (and often had inconsistent affection from parents). Avoidant people tend to be "distant" or push away closeness, and often had overbearing parents. Preoccupied attachment (and probably others) have been added that spectrum now, but right in the middle is SECURE attachment. It's essentially the process of reparenting yourself, being the parent you needed but didn't have. The ability to find your validation from within, and not from others. To say "I love you" every day in the mirror, as your parents could have (or maybe did?) without any strings attached.

I have become so autonomous, sometimes I wonder if I have reached the secure center. But I think perhaps it's more avoidant, detached.

Nobody is going to take care of me better than myself.

Nobody is going to solve my problems, only I am going to do that.

I've gotten very used to it. But it is exhausting.