I Cried A Lot in 2022

Holy smokes! It’s been awhile since I’ve popped on here. But I, like many others, am facing the ceremonial end-of-year reflection period, and it seemed like a good time to (finally) write a few things down.

This year was a real doozy for me. The first week of 2022, my seven year relationship came to an end in a Kohl’s parking lot. So, clearly I really started things strong. What followed was a lot of tears. I’m sure I garnered some sympathetic looks from other drivers who may have witnessed me belting Taylor Swift behind the wheel, while frantically wiping away tears so that I could actually see the road. (Luckily, I headed back to New York the following week where I cried on public transit–which is much less hazardous than behind the wheel.) I cried all the time. If you’ve been in my life awhile, you know that this is not my usual vibe and it was an extremely difficult thing to get accustomed to. Shoutout to my roommate who found me dozens of times just going about my day with tears streaming down my face. She did a really good job pretending that such behavior was completely normal and not uncomfortable for her at all. She’s a really good person.

Anyway, what I learned shortly after my breakup is that my post-breakup recovery would be 900 times more difficult than I could’ve imagined. Which isn’t to say I was expecting it to be a walk in the park. But I truly did not anticipate the extent to which my heartbreak would infiltrate my life. I think I always felt that the term heartbreak seemed a bit dramatic. And it is, but it’s accurately dramatic. Because heartbreak feels as dramatic as the word sounds, which I’m sure anyone who has gone through it can attest to. It is painful and sometimes debilitating–mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Heartbreak is grief. Which I learned would also mean much more than grieving the end of a relationship. I would not just be mourning the loss of the person I thought was my person, I was mourning the loss of the person I was with that person. I was mourning the loss of a future I envisioned for myself. I was mourning a sense of self, and safety, and comfort.

If you’ve ever had to write anything, you’re probably familiar with what is almost always the longest and most frustrating part of the writing process–something I like to call the word doc face-off. This is the period before anything has actually been written. It’s when you sit on your computer with a blank word document trying to come up with something to write. Like that episode of Spongebob when he’s attempting to write his boating school essay. Maybe you write a sentence, but then decide it sounds stupid so you delete it. Until inspiration strikes and you’re actually able to put words on paper, all that’s there is a blinking cursor on a blank page waiting for its story to be written. For the majority of 2022, I felt like a blinking cursor. Lonely and confused and uninspired and sometimes completely directionless. It left me anxious and insecure and really, really sad.

Again, if you know me well, you probably know that emotional vulnerability–much like crying (not a coincidence)–has never been my strong suit. I’ve always felt that being emotionally vulnerable was too risky. Like I was exposing a weakness that could be taken advantage of. A year ago, writing something like this and sharing it with whoever decides to read this would simply not happen. Which obviously means ya girl did some growing, because here I am doing the damn thing.

I can’t pinpoint when the shift occurred, probably because it happened slowly over many, many months. But there was one day in late-August while I was on vacation with my family when I came to terms with the fact that I was still looking for someone else to help heal my wounds for me. I was searching for closure externally from someone who had made it very clear that he no longer felt I was entitled or deserving of his time. So, I sat alone on the beach in the late afternoon, and I cried until the front of my sweatshirt was very damp. (I had become much more comfortable with public crying at this point.) My salty tears mixed with the salty air and I started to feel a bit lighter, like the weight of some of my sadness was washed out to sea. And then I stood up, red-eyed and puffy-faced, and I walked back to our vacation rental and I had a glass of wine and life continued on and I was okay. I would be okay.

There were sometimes (a lot of times) this year where it felt like I was moving backwards. I had to confront a lot of things and feelings I’d been avoiding. I had to learn and unlearn a lot. I had to find new ways to cope with my anxiety and panic. I had to figure out how to better care for myself by myself. But eventually, the blinking cursor on my blank word doc started moving across the page with little to no deletions. Eventually, I stopped trying to get back to my old self and started cozying up to the new me, and she’s actually pretty cool.

Is there a moral to this story? Not really. Other than the fact that I’m now finally able to put some of this into words, and a little less afraid of vulnerability. And also that I’ve come to find that when love leaves you in one way or another, it’s always replenished. I’m not sure I can adequately put into words the extreme gratitude I have for the friends and family (and my brilliant therapist) who helped put me back together this year. It truly was a group effort, and definitely not an easy one.

So, here’s to a new year, and stepping into it a little more whole and a lot bit stronger. As my good friend Kohl’s often says: expect great things.