My first heartbreak.

4 years ago I was simultaneously going through my first heart break when the world shut down. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that time in my life. It’s like we had life before and after 2020.

It wasn’t a shock that my first relationship with a women was unhealthy. I never learned how to have a healthy one or what a healthy relationship even looked like. I remember battling a lot with wanting to stay in the relationship. I tried to hold on so fucking tight to it because I didn’t want to experience the pain.

The pain of heartbreak is like nothing else. I felt no joy, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. It felt even harder cause I came out on social media the month prior. I wasn't 100% out to the world during our relationship and the break up made me feel like I lost the ability to be that part of myself. Your first real relationship is hard enough, but adding the weight of coming out to the world and discovering who you are adds another level to it.

I remember telling anyone who would listen how painful it was. How did I not know about this pain before? How did no one ever warn me about this? Heartbreak put other pain I experienced in a new perspective. Those other things didn't hurt the same anymore.

I was listening to Shannon Beveridge’s “Exes and O’s” podcast and she was discussing that you can only have as much happiness as you have felt pain. That if you’ve never experienced pain - the amount of happiness you can reach is limited. The best people in my life I know have experienced pain / the worst the world has to offer AND they came out on the other side remaining soft. It’s the easy choice to let the world harden you, but takes true strength to come out on the other side and make something out of your pain.

When the truth is you’re LIMITLESS after loss / after pain / after any ending.

There was so many limits put on who I could be when I was in that first relationship. I got outed when I was in that relationship (story for another time). They wanted me to be a certain type of person to make themselves feel better. It was freeing to decide the type of lesbian I want to be. How I want to dress, what I want to do and not have to take into affect their thoughts on it.

I wish I could show my 26 year old self her life now. It feels like I went through a time warp. Today 4 years later I woke up in my apartment to hear the birds chirping, made myself a coffee, meditated outside and made my GF a cup of coffee. So how’d I’d get through my lowest to be here?

When we broke up I desperately tried to stop it (not to stay in the relationship), but so I didn’t have to go through the pain. But there I was. Got my heartbroken, grad school moved online, got let go from my job from COVID and at home full-time with my parents. It was such a scary time. I had no idea what was next.

Your first heartbreak really shows who is there for you in your life. My friend Katie mailed me a journal to write poetry in. My best friend Ayana told me how being at home full time and being able to just focus on my pain may be a blessing. I was able to 100% focus on my healing.

Now I look back and see how that time at home was freeing. I’ll always be thankful for those mornings waking up with my mom, sitting outside and creating a routine that involved being still. I went through heartbreak and got a break from life. I mourned and cried and was sad a lot. But I remember the first time I felt joy after - I got a high grade on a paper. Joy all focused from myself and because myself. It is really easy to lose sight of YOU in your first relationship, even harder when you’re discovering your sexuality.

To be honest it took me a year to get over it. Sometimes we aren’t mourning the person, but feeling lonely and like we are limited in what we can do without them. The following year I decided it was time to change feeling that way and to ask for help.

Sadness is the ultimate gift. Pain is the ultimate tool. The best art / music / writing / change comes from pain.

I went to therapy. That was the most kind thing I could have done for my soul. I was able to heal from the pain in my childhood, learned how to take care of myself and helped me change to be a better partner for the future. It pushed me forward in my career, to work on myself for myself and to create art.

I am thankful for that heartbreak. It led me to the best love a person can have: loving and watering myself.