New Flavour of Asshole (Yes, I know how unfortunate this title sounds. Trust me, it's not that gross)
Hey, there. Wow. Long time no see.
I feel like I almost have to reintroduce myself to my own blog. The last time I posted anything was October 23, 2018. It's been more than half a year, my life has completely unraveled and been rebuilt, and I feel like a completely different person since then. Yet funnily enough, I feel more myself than I have in a long time.
Simply put, I was an asshole who knew I was an asshole and thought that knowing that somehow made me a good person. At least I was an honest asshole, right? For all intents and purposes, honesty is a virtue. Therefore, honest asshole = good person = I can ignore all this shit that's made me insecure and needy for love. Therapy? Nah, too real to even consider. Talking about my problems meant I'd actually have to take a good, hard look at all the ways I was fucked up and *takes a deep breath for dramatic effect* actually see how deep it went.
I think, subconsciously, I knew things went pretty deep. I wouldn't have said I was a shitty person, but I wasn't actively trying to be a good, responsible, emotionally healthy person either. I just buried my pain like a lot of other people, but as all suppressed emotions do, it manifested in ways I couldn't control. My subconscious had been tracking my behavior for the past 23 years of my life and it kept a pretty honest (hah, karma, motherfucker) record of all the ways I did things that were mean, selfish, and insecure. My conscious mind wasn't ready to see all this ugly history.
Until it was.
A month after the break up, I thought it was the worst thing that happened in my life. Two months later, I still thought the same thing. Three, four months later, still the same. Five months later, I finally started understanding that it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Now, almost half a year later, I believe that even more.
It's funny how when you're younger, the best things to happen to you were always pleasant in feeling. Ice cream after dinner? BEST. THING. EVER. You get to go on a field trip to the water park? BEST. FUCKING. THING. EVER.
However, it's only once you get older that you realize that it's the most painful experiences that bring the most abundance into your life. Heartbreak and loss become the best things to happen to you, because they are the only experiences that will ever shake you deeply enough to incite your growth. I recently discovered Mark Manson's articles (and inadvertently hurled myself face-first into another existential crisis), and he has several great ones about loss.
Losing people sucks. Losing progress, faith, opportunities...yourself. It sucks.
Loss can feel like not just your heart but your entire body is constantly being put through a metaphorical paper shredder. Then take those shreds of yourself and throw them onto the tracks of an oncoming train. Loss fucking hurts but it is the only thing that will force you to reckon with your own helplessness in the face of this overwhelming emotion. And decide what to do about it.
(I mean it's either that or let yourself continually be fed to that paper shredder, so it's up to you)
And that is what happened: I grew up because I lost someone dear to me and learned what loving unconditionally means. Both of these lessons, loss and unconditional love, end up being interdependent lessons that pushes people to grow because of one simple reason: it's not about what you get back.
To explain this a little, I'm going to use myself as an example, cuz, duh, this is my blog. During my teens and early twenties (up until this year when I turned 24), I struggled with the idea of unconditional love. I had believed in it once upon a time--until I got hurt by someone and the experience warped my view on love. As social media grew, there were a lot of people promoting the idea of self-care and "love yourself", especially to women who were wronged by men. Love became an economic, objectified version of itself that everyone seemed to want, as if you could just receive it by paying out in some form.
Having been through some shitty dating experiences, I slowly adopted the idea that there needed to be conditions in any romantic relationships. This is true, to an extent. You should stay in a relationship on the condition that you are respected. But love itself is not real love if it is given with conditions that you secretly want met. Love can turn into a relationship. Relationships need some degree of love, BUT ALSO OTHER THINGS. Like compatibility, trust, respect, communication, and all that fairy dust shit no one believes in anymore. Love and relationships are not the same thing, and I was honestly just too inexperienced to see that.
The idea of unconditional love still hung around in the back of my mind, almost like a conscience in my relationships. Obviously, sometimes it didn't win over my insecurity of needing to feel loved, but a part of me was always reminded of the idea of loving for the sake of love, even if I didn't believe in it wholeheartedly.
And somehow, that's what happened during my relationship. I chose to love for the sake of loving, for the sake of being in love with another person. Now, even though missing him feels like the hardest thing I've ever done and the pain still breaks me sometimes, I know I'm okay. Even though it sucks to feel so broken, I feel that brokenness knowing that it's only there because something lovely and fragile once existed. I know the relationship couldn't have lasted any longer, but the love remains.
So basically, I'm that idiot who will bake you cookies even if once upon a time you ate the last cookie I wanted. Unless you're Donald Trump, then no fucking cookies for you, douchebag.
And I didn't get what I wanted. In fact, I lost everything I wanted over the course of the past year. But it's when I lost everything that I learned--truly learned--the value of doing things for the sake of doing them. Not because you want to. Not because you get something in return and profit in some way, but because it feels right and aligns with your values and because it's a good thing to do. Loving my ex was like that. Pursuing, failing, and succeeding at my dreams was like that. I knew things could crash and burn and that I could hurt really fucking badly if shit hit AND broke the fan. I knew it and chose to go ahead anyway.
I am better because of the loss. It forced me to grow up and brought me on my right path. It taught me the value of saying no to things that weren't for me, to draw boundaries. 'Cause guess what? You really can't have it all. You can't be everything you imagined yourself to be.
Loss taught me there's no time to waste when you have dreams and aspirations. Loss pushed me to take the plunge and pursue my life-long dream of being a writer. I have felt myself mature and mellow (there's still a long way to traverse, so I've got my humble pie ready to be heated in the microwave) and start appreciating the simplest of things again. It's so much easier to feel happy now: a pan of homemade fucking vegan brownies or sitting in my backyard makes me happier than traveling across the ocean does. I no longer feel compelled to chase "the hype" or to distract myself every time I feel shitty, and woo-hoo, boundaries are slowly becoming a thing. I have felt my values and priorities re-align themselves to ones I had before I started trying too hard, so now I genuinely feel more balance in my life. Despite all my efforts and "success" in becoming "cool" in the last 4 years, this balance and contentment was never entirely present then. Why? I was always chasing some external gratification, whether it was the superficial pleasure of an aesthetic or a foreign country an ocean away, I was always chasing, period. The me a year ago, the one who was enthusiastic about life for all the superficial and hedonistic reasons, was a childish me.
So, yeah. Hey, there. Long time, no see. I'm not the asshole I was a year ago, but I'm still an asshole. I will still not give a flying shit about certain things and tell you things like they are, but this will come from a more secure and responsible place now. So, guess what? I'm an honest, principled, AND responsible asshole. New flavour, bitch. And honestly, my life is so much sweeter because of it.
I feel like I almost have to reintroduce myself to my own blog. The last time I posted anything was October 23, 2018. It's been more than half a year, my life has completely unraveled and been rebuilt, and I feel like a completely different person since then. Yet funnily enough, I feel more myself than I have in a long time.
7 Months Ago
Yes, now that I can view these last 4 years in hindsight, I was chasing an image of myself I desperately wanted to become. Throughout these 4 years, I dyed my hair a shade of red that was either "stay the fuck away from me, I'm punk as shit and I'll fuck you up" or "fuck me, I'm fun", depending on who looked at it. I got a bunch of piercings to prove I could handle pain, and even enjoyed it. I limited eating food to only consuming things rabbits would eat so I could maintain a figure appealing enough for horny college boys to notice it. I wrote antsy poetry about how boys fucked me over and dubbed it feminism (feminism is a lot more complicated and intersectional than that, I was honestly just complaining). This self image was equally glamorous as it was rebellious and "cool" (so I thought). And by cool, I mean I was desperately trying to mold myself into someone aloof, someone who was damaged and vaguely knew it and decided to rock the emotional wounds like a fashionable outfit. I could have decided to do something responsible about it, but no, self-confrontation and emotional accountability wasn't sexy enough for university and the hip, pretentious part of the city I frequented. My aesthetic demanded I be an emotionally self-preoccupied artist, so I became exactly that.Simply put, I was an asshole who knew I was an asshole and thought that knowing that somehow made me a good person. At least I was an honest asshole, right? For all intents and purposes, honesty is a virtue. Therefore, honest asshole = good person = I can ignore all this shit that's made me insecure and needy for love. Therapy? Nah, too real to even consider. Talking about my problems meant I'd actually have to take a good, hard look at all the ways I was fucked up and *takes a deep breath for dramatic effect* actually see how deep it went.
I think, subconsciously, I knew things went pretty deep. I wouldn't have said I was a shitty person, but I wasn't actively trying to be a good, responsible, emotionally healthy person either. I just buried my pain like a lot of other people, but as all suppressed emotions do, it manifested in ways I couldn't control. My subconscious had been tracking my behavior for the past 23 years of my life and it kept a pretty honest (hah, karma, motherfucker) record of all the ways I did things that were mean, selfish, and insecure. My conscious mind wasn't ready to see all this ugly history.
Until it was.
How Loss Makes Us Grow the Fuck Up
Alright, I'm not going to beat around the bush. My then-boyfriend broke up with me. I won't go into details because a) it's none of your business b) vulnerability without boundaries isn't actually vulnerability, and c) boundaries are sexy. But I will say this: the separation didn't just break my heart, it broke me apart. My identity that I'd worked so hard to construct was completely Miley Cyrus'ed by an emotional wrecking ball that was 6'1 and had a dopey smile that I loved.A month after the break up, I thought it was the worst thing that happened in my life. Two months later, I still thought the same thing. Three, four months later, still the same. Five months later, I finally started understanding that it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Now, almost half a year later, I believe that even more.
It's funny how when you're younger, the best things to happen to you were always pleasant in feeling. Ice cream after dinner? BEST. THING. EVER. You get to go on a field trip to the water park? BEST. FUCKING. THING. EVER.
However, it's only once you get older that you realize that it's the most painful experiences that bring the most abundance into your life. Heartbreak and loss become the best things to happen to you, because they are the only experiences that will ever shake you deeply enough to incite your growth. I recently discovered Mark Manson's articles (and inadvertently hurled myself face-first into another existential crisis), and he has several great ones about loss.
Losing people sucks. Losing progress, faith, opportunities...yourself. It sucks.
Loss can feel like not just your heart but your entire body is constantly being put through a metaphorical paper shredder. Then take those shreds of yourself and throw them onto the tracks of an oncoming train. Loss fucking hurts but it is the only thing that will force you to reckon with your own helplessness in the face of this overwhelming emotion. And decide what to do about it.
(I mean it's either that or let yourself continually be fed to that paper shredder, so it's up to you)
Presently
I want to begin this section by saying that I still miss my ex every day. Most days, it feels like I miss him several hundred times a day. No, I'm not hyperbolizing that for the sake of dramatic effect. That's how losing someone works, especially when you are able to love them unconditionally. It doesn't matter what they do, the loss will stay with you every day (and not because you have shitty boundaries).And that is what happened: I grew up because I lost someone dear to me and learned what loving unconditionally means. Both of these lessons, loss and unconditional love, end up being interdependent lessons that pushes people to grow because of one simple reason: it's not about what you get back.
To explain this a little, I'm going to use myself as an example, cuz, duh, this is my blog. During my teens and early twenties (up until this year when I turned 24), I struggled with the idea of unconditional love. I had believed in it once upon a time--until I got hurt by someone and the experience warped my view on love. As social media grew, there were a lot of people promoting the idea of self-care and "love yourself", especially to women who were wronged by men. Love became an economic, objectified version of itself that everyone seemed to want, as if you could just receive it by paying out in some form.
Having been through some shitty dating experiences, I slowly adopted the idea that there needed to be conditions in any romantic relationships. This is true, to an extent. You should stay in a relationship on the condition that you are respected. But love itself is not real love if it is given with conditions that you secretly want met. Love can turn into a relationship. Relationships need some degree of love, BUT ALSO OTHER THINGS. Like compatibility, trust, respect, communication, and all that fairy dust shit no one believes in anymore. Love and relationships are not the same thing, and I was honestly just too inexperienced to see that.
The idea of unconditional love still hung around in the back of my mind, almost like a conscience in my relationships. Obviously, sometimes it didn't win over my insecurity of needing to feel loved, but a part of me was always reminded of the idea of loving for the sake of love, even if I didn't believe in it wholeheartedly.
And somehow, that's what happened during my relationship. I chose to love for the sake of loving, for the sake of being in love with another person. Now, even though missing him feels like the hardest thing I've ever done and the pain still breaks me sometimes, I know I'm okay. Even though it sucks to feel so broken, I feel that brokenness knowing that it's only there because something lovely and fragile once existed. I know the relationship couldn't have lasted any longer, but the love remains.
So basically, I'm that idiot who will bake you cookies even if once upon a time you ate the last cookie I wanted. Unless you're Donald Trump, then no fucking cookies for you, douchebag.
And I didn't get what I wanted. In fact, I lost everything I wanted over the course of the past year. But it's when I lost everything that I learned--truly learned--the value of doing things for the sake of doing them. Not because you want to. Not because you get something in return and profit in some way, but because it feels right and aligns with your values and because it's a good thing to do. Loving my ex was like that. Pursuing, failing, and succeeding at my dreams was like that. I knew things could crash and burn and that I could hurt really fucking badly if shit hit AND broke the fan. I knew it and chose to go ahead anyway.
I am better because of the loss. It forced me to grow up and brought me on my right path. It taught me the value of saying no to things that weren't for me, to draw boundaries. 'Cause guess what? You really can't have it all. You can't be everything you imagined yourself to be.
Loss taught me there's no time to waste when you have dreams and aspirations. Loss pushed me to take the plunge and pursue my life-long dream of being a writer. I have felt myself mature and mellow (there's still a long way to traverse, so I've got my humble pie ready to be heated in the microwave) and start appreciating the simplest of things again. It's so much easier to feel happy now: a pan of homemade fucking vegan brownies or sitting in my backyard makes me happier than traveling across the ocean does. I no longer feel compelled to chase "the hype" or to distract myself every time I feel shitty, and woo-hoo, boundaries are slowly becoming a thing. I have felt my values and priorities re-align themselves to ones I had before I started trying too hard, so now I genuinely feel more balance in my life. Despite all my efforts and "success" in becoming "cool" in the last 4 years, this balance and contentment was never entirely present then. Why? I was always chasing some external gratification, whether it was the superficial pleasure of an aesthetic or a foreign country an ocean away, I was always chasing, period. The me a year ago, the one who was enthusiastic about life for all the superficial and hedonistic reasons, was a childish me.
So, yeah. Hey, there. Long time, no see. I'm not the asshole I was a year ago, but I'm still an asshole. I will still not give a flying shit about certain things and tell you things like they are, but this will come from a more secure and responsible place now. So, guess what? I'm an honest, principled, AND responsible asshole. New flavour, bitch. And honestly, my life is so much sweeter because of it.
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