That Her, and This Me. Surprisingly Incompatible

A funny thing happened to me a long time after my last breakup.
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I did the thing you do… got one of those human-finding apps where you judge the next love of your life through a ceaseless stream of thumb-flickable faces.
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So, I created a dating profile,
and then I stepped back.
I Looked at it.
I realized…
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…the man being described in those words…
…would not have attracted her.
That gave me an uncomfortable relief. A heavy unburdening.
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I spent a lot of time after that relationship, analyzing my behaviour, my actions, my mistakes. Trying to make sense of everything. I learned a lot. About myself. About how I show up in relationships. And about what I need to stay—so that when I’m in, I know fully, that I’m fully in.
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What I didn’t realize, until looking at my new dating profile, was that I’ve not only learned, but changed. A lot. Next time, I won’t hide the bits of myself I thought unseemly to show in the daylight. The parts of myself that I was afraid to reveal.
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It’s not that I didn’t trust her—it’s that I didn’t trust myself knowing that someone knew me in such vulnerable ways. In such unprotected places. Places that only came out in complete safety… and I never learned how to create that safety with her. She has her part in all of this, but I can only honestly see, understand, and change my part.
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What I can say,
is that next time,
I won’t trade clarity for company.
I won’t be satisfied with “safe enough” to stay.
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The next woman I call ‘her’, and people who know me know who I mean, will be the softness I need to unfold myself—to lay bare the bits I used to protect… even from ‘her’.
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She won’t be soft for me because it’s her job as my intimate ladyfriend, but by her choice—because my steadiness built the environment she needs, to be who she wants to be with me—so I can reveal all of who I am to her, trusting her with those unprotected bits.
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I’ve realized that a lot of the pain of losing a relationship isn’t just from the loss of the person you were with… but it’s the loss of who you were when you were with them.
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I thought my sadness was for the loss of her.
Truly though, it was grief at losing the me who I was.
In time, I’ve come to discover that I didn’t actually lose me.
He’s still in me. Part of me.
I’ve grown around him. From him.
Today, I understand him better than he understood himself.
That’s given me a lot of compassion for myself.