The future I had to grieve

When I think back to the summer that taught me the art of letting go, the first image that comes to mind isn’t actually the heartbreak.

It’s me leaving his house on a warm spring day, actually skipping from his apartment to my car with a cheesy ass grin across my face. I got into my car and put on Ella Mai’s song Sauce. I remember singing every word with the perfect amount of sass and confidence as the wind blew through my hair. I felt beautiful. Desired. Alive.

I drove home convinced that maybe this was it.

Maybe this was why everything with Justin had fallen apart.

Maybe this was the relationship I’d been waiting for.

My whole body was buzzing. It felt like being plugged into the most electrifying light socket while sitting up on cloud 9.

It was impossible to think that this could be anything but love. Soulmates. Finding my person. I couldn’t imagine any other reality.

It would take me months to realize that this wasn’t love. This was me intoxicated by a dream he illuminated for me and just like that, I had confused the high of possibility with love.

In the beginning of our chats I saw the possibility of a relationship that had depth, something I had desperately wanted.

It was emotional, vulnerable, honest. I remember thinking that this was the kind of relationship I had always wanted. One where we talked about our triggers, our attachment styles, and our patterns in an open and honest way.

They weren’t easy conversations, but it helped me feel more trusting of him and the possibility of the relationship we were building. We were in constant communication… and I had become pretty attached to the good morning texts and check-ins throughout the day.

Every single time a message came in I would feel that electric buzzing feeling I mentioned. I remember thinking: yep, this is what love is supposed to feel like!

All the talks of our wounds, past relationships, our childhood shit, our dreams, the lives we wanted to build… we went deep real fast (that’s why I shared more about this in the podcast episode: Is it Chemistry or a Trauma Bond? Understanding the Difference).

When it started taking him longer to respond to my texts, the good morning texts became more sporadic, and the space between our after-work hangouts grew... I started feeling that perfect future we talked about slipping away, and I did everything I could to hold onto it.

I checked my phone constantly.

I reread our old messages over and over again.

I’d catch myself looking for his car whenever I drove through town.

I wrote novel texts I probably shouldn’t have sent.

The real stinger was the hours of tarot readings I would watch on YouTube, clinging to every crumb of hope they offered that maybe he was just overwhelmed, maybe he was scared, maybe he was going through something... anything that would validate the story I so desperately wanted to believe.

Some days I drove out into the middle of nowhere so I could be out of cell service because I knew I needed distance. I’d spend miles hiking, crying, arguing with my spirit team, God, the trees… anything that would listen.

“Why would you do this to me?”

“Why did you make me believe this person was going to be such a gift?”

“Why would you let me believe we were soulmates just to take it all away?”

And even still I would race back toward town because I wanted one bar of service. I wanted my phone to light up and I wanted his name on my screen.

Sometimes I’d even text him to let him know I’d been out of service… but it wasn’t really because I thought he needed to know…

It was because I hoped he’d respond.

Looking back now, I can see how desperately I was grasping, but I wasn’t grasping for him. I was grasping for hope.

Hope that maybe this time would be different.

Hope that we’d become the couple we talked about becoming.

Hope that all the dreams I had attached to him could still come true.

Then came my sister’s birthday….

He had agreed that he would come, but as the day went on, I kept checking my phone.

Nothing.

I called him once, twice, three times… all going to voicemail.

At this point I had unfortunately gotten really good at making excuses for him.

Maybe he’s running late.
Maybe his phone died.
Maybe something came up.

I mean, the stories we tell ourselves when we’re trying to protect a future can be incredibly convincing.

Hours passed and there was still nothing.

No text.
No call.
No explanation.
Just silence.

It wasn’t the first time he’d disappeared, but it was the first time I couldn’t pretend it only affected me. My whole family was there to witness me in it… and somewhere between looking at my sister and my family, answering questions I didn’t know how to answer, and feeling the now very familiar nauseous feeling in my gut, something inside me became undeniably clear.

I was exhausted, and this whole thing I’ve been entertaining in the name of love is absolutely fucked.

I had spent months trying to hold a relationship together that only one of us seemed to be holding. I was so attached to the possibility of who we could become that I forgot to ask myself a much more important question:

Is this actually enough for me?

That night, for the first time, I stopped trying to convince myself that if I just waited a little longer, loved a little harder, or understood him a little better, everything would fall into place.

I finally admitted something I had been avoiding for months.

I wasn’t holding onto a relationship anymore… I was holding onto a fantasy.

The moment I confessed that truth to myself the fantasy burst like a glitter-filled balloon with a zillion tiny pieces of glitter everywhere.

One glittering piece held the woman who believed she’d finally found her soulmate.

Another held the belief that I was lovable enough to be chosen.

Another held the future where I finally got to stop searching.

Every glittering piece held a version of myself I thought I was becoming, and the dreams of a life that I had attached to this person.

And I had to grieve every single one of them.

Hope is a beautiful thing... until it becomes the only thing holding a relationship together. It convinced me that almost was enough. That the inconsistency just meant that he was overwhelmed. That if I could just be patient enough, loving enough, understanding enough, eventually we’d work out and all my dreams would come true.

I had to be honest with myself about what I was claiming to be love. I wasn’t chasing him and our “love”.

I was chasing the life I had attached to him.

I had wrapped my identity around the idea of us. My dreams of marriage. My dreams of motherhood. My longing to finally feel chosen. My hope that I had finally found my soulmate. It had all become tangled up in one person.

Of course letting go felt impossible.

I wasn’t trying to let go of a man, I was trying to let go of the life I thought I was finally about to have.

And that was the moment I finally understood what codependency really was.

It was not loving someone too much, it was believing my future depended on them. Believing my worth depended on them. Believing the life I wanted could only exist if they chose me.

I had placed my worth in his hands.
My future of being a mother in his hands.
My identity of being lovable and chosen in his hands.
My happiness in his hands.
And that’s a burden no human being was ever meant to carry.

That’s why the hardest thing I had to grieve wasn’t actually the relationship. It was the future I’d imagined with them.

And maybe that’s where you are today.

Maybe you’re telling yourself you can’t let go of your ex.

Or the person who keeps sending mixed signals.

Or the relationship that almost happened.

But I wonder...

Could it be that what you’re really grieving isn’t them?
Could it be the home you imagined?
The children you pictured?
The version of yourself you thought you’d become beside them?

So maybe, before you ask yourself, “Why can’t I let them go?” could you ask yourself something different…

What future have I attached to this person?

Because sometimes the thing keeping us stuck isn’t the relationship… it’s the life we’ve convinced ourselves can only happen through them.

Today, when I think back to that summer, I no longer see a woman who was weak. I see a woman who believed someone else was holding the future she longed for.

She didn’t know yet that life had dreams for her that were bigger than the ones she’d attached to one person.

She didn’t know she’d eventually discover that the love she’d been chasing outside herself was actually inviting her home.

Maybe that’s what the art of letting go really is…

Not convincing yourself to stop loving someone, or pretending that it didn’t matter, or forcing yourself to move on before your heart is ready.

Maybe letting go is grieving the future you imagined, while making room for the one you cannot yet see.

July Events for Codependency Alchemy

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Jun 28

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