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.
I’m left now with a yearning to feel all of those things again, and a fear that I never will.
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.
Every year around this time, I inhale the lighter fall air into my lungs, but suffocate under the heaviness of grief.
