I used to believe in the phrase love conquers all.
But love, as a feeling alone, crumbles without a foundation built.

I’ve learned that love is intentional.

To me, it’s a soft kiss on the forehead that makes the mind feel zen.
A warm embrace that melts away the body’s tension.
A bubble bath drawn as an act of care, to wash away the day’s stress.

My body knows calmness instead of confusion.
Softness instead of whiplash.

It’s consistency in the small things that together, feel bigger.
A good-morning text.
A good-night wish.
A “this reminded me of you.”
The comfort of knowing that presence won’t disappear.

For me, it’s being met with “What can I do to support you?” when I’m feeling defeated.
Not fixed.
Not minimized.
Just heard.

An apology followed by change.
Someone who stays when things get hard; who understands partnership as collaboration rather than conflict.

It makes room for being human, with the trust that we will always find the way back to each other.
It turns conversations about feelings and impact into bridges toward understanding and growth, rather than attacks.

It’s being treated to a boba tea or a favorite home-cooked meal.
A back rub when anxiety is consuming or pain has become too loud.
A quiet night in, or a gentle activity, when chronic illness flares — care that adapts instead of resents.

It’s showing up, sometimes just to sit in silence next to each other.
Doing small things simply because they bring joy.
A pause mid-conversation to admire each other.
A quiet glimmer in their eyes while listening to me telling a story.

I’ve learned that love is actionable.

It isn’t perfection.
It’s accountability.
Willingness.
Growth.

The understanding that there doesn’t always have to be someone who’s “right.”

It looks like cuddling on the couch under a shared blanket.
Giggling before sleep.
The electric softness of familiar touch.
A home found in someone’s being.

It’s someone who makes the world feel less chaotic, not because life is easy, but because it’s faced together.
Date nights that remind me why love chose us in the first place.
The ongoing intention to tend what matters.

To me, safe love is being understood. And chosen.
Not merely tolerated, but cherished.
Finding beauty in someone’s quirks.
Nurturing them because their happiness deepens your own.

It’s remembering the small things.
Holding hands in the car.
Doing nothing at all, and letting that be enough.

Sometimes my mind tells me this kind of love isn’t real.

I know it is.
Because it’s the love I offer.

Content Note:
This piece addresses themes of emotional abuse, coercion, self-harm, and relationship trauma.

I’ve written pieces like Sad Girl Dinner and Every November — written in moments where grief, pain, anger, were like a pot on a hot stove, boiling over. And though I’ve always been someone who naturally feels everything so deeply, I can’t help but wonder why does this all feel so heavy?

My feelings don’t feel “normal.” They feel like pain strewn across the stars, across light-years and galaxies. Buried, yet easily resurfaced. Echoes of every cry, wail, plea for help, all twisted into something unrecognizable.

As if tangled like a necklace, I’ve slowly started to trace the loops and knots, trying to recover its original form. Or rather, my original form.

Much like that process, I’m understanding that the untangling takes time and patience. And that even then, I may never return to my original shape. I’ve also questioned, how did I get here?

I’ve reached an epiphany that I never wanted to have, because that means I have to admit that I’ve played a part in my own betrayals.

Not in the sense that I caused the harm that was done to me, but that I stayed, adapted, and contorted myself in relationships that required self-erasure.

I’ve never had a soft love. Not from others; not from myself.

My first love wasn’t love at all. I can say that now, looking back with years of unwelcome wisdom. What it really was, was wanting someone who didn’t want me back in the same way. All-consuming. Confusing. Harmful.

I was only 13 — a time when I didn’t yet have language for power imbalances or emotional leverage. I only knew that being close to her felt electric, and being kept at a distance felt devastating. Affection came in small, fleeting doses. A hug (or more) if I was lucky, but mostly closeness that felt conditional.

I learned very early that love was something you earned. And when I couldn’t earn it, I turned to writing poetry and self harm to cope.

Her life at home was unstable. There was yelling. Cruelty. An environment where she was constantly criticized and made to feel small. She developed some unhealthy coping mechanisms of her own. She was always asking me if she looked okay, if I thought she was pretty, if I thought she was enough. And I became a soft place for her.

I thought that if I could love her more, be easier, prove myself, that she would eventually love me back. I did her chores. Paid for her lunches. Gave her endless affirmation.

Yet by her, I was forced to dress, speak, and move a certain way. Limited in who and what I was allowed to engage with. Certain music, certain clothes, certain people were off-limits. Only “hers”. If I crossed those invisible lines, affection was withdrawn. Threats made. I was afraid to lose her entirely.

So I complied.

I grew very good at reading moods, anticipating withdrawal, making myself useful, quiet, desirable, agreeable. It was drilled into me that my needs were inconvenient, that my feelings were “too much,” that wanting reciprocity was a pipe dream.

And yet, I still loved her. Deeply. Desperately. In a way that completely overtook my adolescence.

There were boundaries that blurred. I let them be crossed just to stay close to her. Intimacy existed, but never equally. It came unpredictably, on her terms, without reciprocity. I took every breadcrumb I could get, because breadcrumbs felt better than starving.

That unpredictability trained me. It taught me to wait. To hope. To chase. To accept confusion as chemistry and scarcity as desire.

I stayed for five years.

I stayed because this was the only version of love I knew.

When I finally broke things off, I didn’t feel relief. I felt lost. My sense of self had been stripped by the control I had adapted to. Scared doesn’t begin to describe it. I was a stranger to myself.

So when someone else showed interest at a time I was looking for a way out, I latched onto him. Because I didn’t know how to exist without being attached to someone. Somehow, I thought he would be my escape.

Sex happened by coercion. In environments clouded by alcohol, heartbreak, jealousy, and shame. I told myself this was normal. That this was what relationships looked like when you were grown. I didn’t yet know how to tell the difference between desire and obligation.

He cheated on me more times than I will ever know. I felt it in my body long before I ever had proof. When the proof finally came, I should’ve left.

Instead, we talked about making it work.

At one point, he looked me in the face and told me he cared about me, but didn’t know if he was capable of real love. I don’t know why I stayed. But I’ve never forgotten the blank look in his eyes.

In the moments I wasn’t trying to convince myself this was fine, my thoughts drifted somewhere else. I thought about women. About what it might feel like to want instead of endure. Yearning for softness and mutuality, something I hadn’t known.

When he proposed, the feeling that rose in me wasn’t excitement, but fear. I noticed it immediately. I remember thinking how strange it was that I wasn’t crying tears of joy.

When he was stationed in another state, the distance made the truth harder to ignore. When he finally came home for his father’s wedding, we stayed in a hotel together. We had sex. We talked. And somewhere in that conversation, it came out that he had a threesome during one of our “breaks.” He described it not just casually, but boastfully.

A panic attack took over. Violent crying. The realization that the person who claimed to care about me could treat intimacy like something disposable, while asking me to commit my entire future to him. It was then I told him I would never see him the same again. And for once, I meant it.

I left. And even though I was proud for walking away, it wasn’t the end of the pattern.

After him, there were others. Not loves; more like places I tried to rest. None of them felt solid. None of them felt mutual. They were all variations of the same lesson: closeness without safety.

There were arrangements where I was wanted, but not chosen. Where my body was welcome, but my heart wasn’t. Where I was convenient, available, and disposable. I told myself this was better than nothing. That at least someone wanted me.

And then there was the first woman who felt real.

The first place where my queerness wasn’t just daydreamed, but lived. And yet, even that love had to be hidden.

She was younger than me. Closeted. I was in a position of authority. Everything about us had to stay secret — at work, at home, everywhere. Her family was deeply religious. When she finally came out, we were told we couldn’t see each other for a while.

I panicked.

Not because I didn’t care, but because I cared too much. Because control was taken away from me again. Because something I loved fiercely suddenly felt fragile.

Instead of saying I was scared, I said something else. I told her I didn’t know if I felt a spark anymore. The words left my mouth before I could stop them. I knew immediately I had made a mistake. By the time I tried to take them back, it was too late.

She walked away.

That loss still hurts. Not just because I loved her, but because I became the thing I had always been afraid of. I hurt someone I cared about because I didn’t yet know how to sit with uncertainty without self-destructing.

After that, I kept drifting. Back into dynamics where I was used instead of met. Where intimacy existed without intention. Where I was someone’s option, never their choice. By the time I met the next person, I was hopeless.

Exhausted.

Done.

And then I met someone who felt different.

Not perfect. Not effortless. But present in a way I wasn’t used to. Attentive. Curious. Emotionally open. She asked questions and seemed to care about the answers. She took accountability in ways I hadn’t seen before. She apologized when she hurt me. She worried about losing me.

For the first time, I felt chosen.

I let myself believe that maybe this time would be different. That all the work I had done, all the awareness, all the growth, had finally led me somewhere safe. I felt seen not just for my softness, but for my depth. I felt met instead of used. Held instead of tolerated.

And because of that, I trusted her with everything.

I told her about my past. About the ways love had hurt me. About how deeply I feared abandonment. About how much consistency mattered to me. She knew what it had cost me to open like that. She knew how careful I was being with my heart.

At first, she met me there.

But slowly, something began to change.

There were moments of intense closeness followed by sudden distance. Warmth followed by withdrawal. Promises made and then quietly undone. Sometimes she could go deep with me, emotionally present and reflective. Other times she felt unreachable. Guarded. Afraid.

It felt like loving someone who could access closeness at times, and retreat from it at others — as if different parts of her were taking turns.

I tried to be patient. I tried to communicate clearly. I tried to hold space for her fear without silencing myself. I explained my needs gently and honestly, believing that clarity could create safety. Instead, the ground kept shifting.

I began to feel the familiar tightening in my chest. The hypervigilance. The waiting. The feeling of self-abandonment. I hated that feeling because I recognized it. I had been here before. I had promised myself I would never live inside this kind of uncertainty again.

And yet, I stayed.

Not because I was naive, but because when things were good, they were so good. Because the connection felt rare. Because she had shown me a version of love that felt real, and I kept hoping we could return to it.

Our separation felt final, but unfinished.

There was distance, then reaching. Boundaries, then softness. Silence followed by familiar words that reopened old wounds. It never stayed closed long enough to feel resolved, and never stayed open long enough to feel safe.

There was no true untangling. Just stretches of absence followed by moments of closeness that made me believe we were still holding something real. We struggled not to reach for each other, even when we knew we should stop. Periods of no contact felt unbearable, followed by reconnecting that felt stabilizing. Each return brought relief; each withdrawal brought despair.

I was left holding the weight of what we had built without ever being sure when it was actually over. Trying to understand how something that once felt mutual could keep changing shape. Never solid enough to rest in, yet never gone enough to release.

That loss broke me in a way the others never had.

I don’t think she meant to devastate me. I think she was afraid. I think she didn’t know how to stay present when things became real. I think her own unhealed parts took over.

But intent does not erase impact.

And the impact was this: the one person I trusted not to repeat the pattern still became part of it. Not by intention, but by limitation.

That is what shattered me. Not because she was cruel, but because she mattered. Because the love was real enough to hope for, and unstable enough to lose.

---

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Lately, it’s really started to feel like fall for me. Not just because it’s getting darker sooner and the weather’s turning colder, but because of the way the universe makes me feel. Every year around this time, both a peacefulness and an extreme loneliness wash over me. Contradictory, just like everything else about me.

My body finally feels like it’s not in overdrive, constantly trying to maintain my temperature. My joints feel less swollen, though I’ve started to notice my ankles feel incredibly weak, especially when I first place my feet on the ground in the morning. There’s a sense of ease in the world around me now, less hustle and bustle. I can feel it in the crispness of the air.

At the very same time, my mind is still racing. Maybe even more so than during the spring and summer. I don’t know if it’s because I’m staying inside more, with fewer things to keep me busy. All I know is there’s a million thoughts swirling in my head; even as I write this I’m struggling to figure out where to start.

I’ve been thinking a lot about healing and how different that looks from person to person. I’m frustrated with myself because I feel like I’ve been on this journey for so long, too long; I’m ready to be done. I want to be loved. I’m ready to be loved. I think? But I don’t know which, my mind or my heart, isn’t letting me move forward. I’m angry because everyone always says that things get better over time, but I feel like I’m stuck in the exact same place I was at the end of 2023.

It’s cruel, actually, how you can still have so much love for someone who completely and utterly broke your heart. The day the divorce was finalized, I remember saying to myself that I’m never going to be the same person. And I’m not.

She awoke something in me that I can’t put back to sleep. A love that I didn’t know existed. Deep, genuine, unmatched. I shared parts of myself I’ve never shared with anyone else. I felt vulnerable, yet seen. Understood. And, for a time, appreciated. Those feelings didn’t get to last long, as the person I fell in love with slowly drifted away, both physically and emotionally.

Every time I try to have this conversation with someone, they just don’t get it. I’ve observed so many relationships where people seem annoyed or resentful of their partners. Where the love has disappeared. They’ve lied, they’ve cheated, and half the time it seems like they don’t even like each other on a fundamental level. So when these people tell me that everything will be okay, that time heals all wounds, that I’ll find the connection I’m yearning for again, I know they don’t understand.

What’s worse is the way people assume that healing means being alone, that I just need more “time to myself.” I don’t. I’ve had nothing but time to myself for over two years. I’ve sat with myself. I’ve sat with my emotions. I’ve coped and learned and reflected. I’ve done everything you’re “supposed to do.” But time alone doesn’t fix the hole that’s shaped like connection. I don’t need more solitude. I need softness. I need to be loved again. And I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

I absolutely can’t stand the “you have to love yourself first” notion, as if self-love is a prerequisite for being worthy of love. I do love myself. That’s not the issue. I just want someone else to love me too. I don’t buy into the idea that you have to be perfectly whole before someone can love you. That logic implies that people without self-worth are unworthy of being cared for, and that’s cruel. Sometimes it’s being loved that helps you learn to love yourself—not the other way around.

How do I explain to them the chokehold this split still has? It has split me into pieces. I wanted to spend my life with this person. I wanted to grow old together. To experience life together. To die together. There’s no one else I’ve ever felt this strongly toward. We aligned on so many things: music taste, not wanting kids, being spiritual but not religious, ethics, politics, the way we see the world. I never felt like I had a mask on; she was one of the only people in my life that I could be completely myself with. And for someone like me, that’s something so rare and beautiful.

How am I ever going to find that again? There are so many things working against me that, statistically, it’s nearly impossible. I’m a lesbian living in the Midwest, who’s neurodivergent and chronically ill. I don’t have the energy to go out much, so I’m a bit of a homebody. I’m also painfully demisexual, and I have a very specific type of person I’m attracted to. People will say I’m picky, but I can’t help the way my brain and attraction are wired.

And so, on my drives home, whether after visiting family or coming home from work, that emptiness creeps in. I don’t have anyone to drive home to. And that’s another thing— most people haven’t experienced truly being alone. They’ve had roommates or family. Never just themselves. Unlike me.

I think that’s why it feels so cruel this time of year. Because peace and sorrow hold hands here. Because the quiet gives my mind too much room. Because the air finally cools down, but I can’t.

This is when the nights get longer. When it gets harder to fill the silence. When the distractions run out. And every moment that isn’t busy becomes a moment I think about her. About us. About the life that almost was.

People tell me I should “get out there,” “give it time,” “trust that it’ll happen when it’s meant to.” I hate those conversations. I hate the way their words roll off their tongues so easily. Like grief is just a phase; like heartbreak is something you can walk off. They don’t know what it’s like to love once in a way that attaches to your atoms and lingers in your bones.

I’m tired of being alone, and of people telling me that I’m not. No platonic relationship can quiet the yearning for romantic companionship.

Maybe it’s the season that does this to me—less sunlight, less noise, more space for my mind to wander into all the places I try to avoid. Maybe it’s because both our birthdays are in November, and then come the holidays, and I’m still here, setting the table for one.

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Stopped at the store on my way home from work today. I was mad at myself because I bought a $10 wine bottle opener when I could easily get one on Amazon for much cheaper. But I had made up my mind; I had a bottle of wine at home waiting for me. I picked it out last week anticipating that I was going to drink it then, but I scoured my cabinets and could not find the bottle opener I knew I already had. Seriously, where is that thing?

So I made the stop at the store and I spent the stupid money. Everyone always talks about numbing the pain. But I’m not too sure that’s what it is. Maybe it’s actually wanting to push myself into the deep end — swimming in the misery, in the heartache, until my hands and feet are pruned, until the skin is so fragile that I think about how easy it would be for it to slough off and bleed.

I told my coworker that lately I keep stumbling upon music you sent me. And maybe that was the truth the first time, but then I kept playing those songs over and over again, forcing myself to cry. I mean, I have a whole playlist dedicated to this ritual — Right Now I’m a Saddie, Not a Baddie. Even outside that playlist, I can’t share most of my music with others because they call it depressing.

Several times I sat in my car to finish a sad song, or two, or three. I’ve been blasting them loudly and staring blankly out the front windshield, gazing at the sky. Trying to blame my instability on the season change or the full moon. That’s a lie.

Every time I play a song that reminds me of you, I picture you being in the car with me, riding passenger since I was always the one to drive. I imagine us singing the song together, or looking over at you and watching your hand movements capture the essence of the lyrics. I miss that about you.

For someone who seemed to feel everything so deeply, it sure was easy for you to stop feeling deeply about me.

I forced myself to hit pause and get out of the car. Tonight I ate a sad girl dinner comprised of mac and cheese topped with ground beef and melted cheddar. I followed that with some leftover kettle corn popcorn that I let sit out on the counter all night prior. Stale. How appropriate.

I finally decided to take a shower after three days of dry shampoo and just cleaning important areas. I used that stupid $10 bottle opener to open the wine and poured an entire cup, not a glass, maybe 12 to 16 ounces or so. After undressing, I grabbed the cup of wine and brought it with me as I stepped into the shower. I’ll admit I was hoping that the heat would accelerate the buzz, and it did just that. As I gulped down half the cup, my body shivered at the disgusting taste, sending goosebumps down my arms.

Here I am. Naked and lost in thought, scrubbing my body until it feels like I can’t scrub anymore. A literal and metaphorical cleansing. All of my best and worst thoughts come to me here— always the shower. I’ve written about it before. I still ponder why this is, but I know I need to hurry and dry off so I can get these thoughts down before they’ve all evaporated.

I know what comes next. It’s like clockwork. I’ll sit down on the couch and mindlessly scroll, my TikTok algorithm knowing exactly what I’m doing. It feeds me more heartbreak, relationship bullshit. It’s trying to con me into engaging with more and more tarot readings about you. It knows how to get in my head.

So I close the tab. I open up a game I’ve been playing for months now to keep my brain busy. Embarrassingly, I think I’ve spent at least $30 on it this month alone, but at least it distracts me from you.

Thirty minutes into my game and I can feel my face starting to flush, and beads of sweat building behind my knees since I always sit cross-legged. I get up from the couch and head to the bathroom where I grab an aerosol can of Dove dry spray, lavender fresh scent. It’s a soft scent that my senses can actually handle, which is good since the sweat behind my knees is sending me into sensory hell. If my body didn’t hate alcohol, among other things, I know I could easily be an addict. Not just from my trauma, but also from genetics. I thank the universe that isn’t the case, shifting between crossing and uncrossing my legs so they can air out. I think about how you’d relate to this sensory nightmare. I wonder how you work on cars, between sweating in the heat and being drenched in cold slush during the winter. Maybe it’s one of the reasons why we failed (but probably not).

I pour more wine into my cup. At this point I’m feeling it, and I’m not even sure why I’m pouring it into a cup at all. I almost knocked it over onto my beige couch, and by the time I’m finished, I’m sure the whole bottle will be gone anyway. Still, I pour.

Watching TV will help distract me again. Does anyone else find binge-watching so easy? Are we all just trying to live inside the screen? Anything but here, right? Maybe this is my addiction: binge-watching TV shows. I never understood why people are so judgmental toward addicts, especially fellow nurses. Truly, I don’t think anyone just wakes up one day and decides that substances are fun. If anything, it takes a dark, dark place to take you there. There is no fun, only desperation.

Tonight, when I decide at a time that’s entirely too late to finally head to bed, I’ll lay down in a king-sized one. So great, all this space...

But it’s empty. Just me. Bailey is at my parents’ since it’s a work night. King Princess’s song “Talia” starts playing in my head...

I know I can’t taste your lipstick, since you don’t wear it, but you get the point. Earlier this year, I bought this king-sized bed, back when I thought we still had a chance. When I thought you’d end up lying next to me again.

My body starts begging me for dopamine, serotonin — whichever one it is; I always forget. So I give it that. But as I come down, it comes crashing down too. I lie there with a giant hole in my chest, starting to sob. No matter how many times I try to fill the hole, and no matter what I try to fill it with, it’s always there. I hate you for that — for awakening a part of me that I didn’t know existed, just to abandon me. Every day I can hear my upstairs neighbor’s footsteps above me. I wonder if she (I think a she?) can hear my sobs afterward. How embarrassing, and pathetic.

I find myself bringing my hand to my chest and applying pressure as I wince. Not from physical pain, but rather emotional. God damn this hole. How can there be this emptiness yet heaviness all at once? I’ve had to teach myself grounding techniques so I don’t spiral out of control. But I still lose it, every time. My sobbing continues for what I guess is only about five to ten minutes, but feels more like an hour.

Tomorrow I have to get up for work. It’s my last day at my current one. A bunch of reps are bringing me treats, celebrating my next move. Growth. Opportunity. And yet every single night, I go to bed feeling this longing for you — for the life I thought I’d be living. Good things happening around me and maybe even to me, but I still feel so... hopeless.

My brain is on a reel, telling me I’ll never feel this way about anyone ever again. That I’ll never find the connection we used to have.

I’m starting to believe it.

The pressure of my hand on my chest isn’t helping. I really tried. Next I reach for my bed sheet, except it’s not a bed sheet. I mean literally, yes, but I use it to cuddle, not cover. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always needed a “blankie” to sleep with. You’re one of the only people who have actively seen me sleep with it. You didn’t understand it at first, but one day you pressed it against your face and embraced it into your arms. Then you understood. I still got some flack for it literally being a baby blanket, so this year I swapped it for a bedsheet instead.

I’ve been growing increasingly self-conscious about my body this year. A lot of changes. Things I’m not happy about. I started hyper-focusing on my face and symmetry, or lack thereof. I read that sleeping on your side can cause facial asymmetry, so now I use my bed sheet to wrap around my head, and I’m training myself to sleep on my back.

How ridiculous is that? That this bedsheet provides me such emotional and physical comfort. If only it were you instead...

Anger is coursing through my veins now. All this shit is happening in my life. Even though you’re the one person I want to share it with, I can’t. I’m mad because I know I would have NEVER fucking done this to you. I want to hate you. I want to hate you so bad. As I’m laying in bed, trying to fall asleep, I purposely try to replay all of the awful things you’ve done and said to me over the years.

Jesus fucking Christ. Five whole years of knowing you, but only two of them spent with you actually loving me.

How absolutely fucked is it that you still have a hold on me after all this time?

They say time heals all wounds. Where do these people get these dumb sayings?

I don’t want the fantasy of love anymore. I just want peace.

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