Author Archives: Mrs. Darcy

May3

The things you can’t let go

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The things you can’t let go

I wonder if there is such a thing as being too curious.

For starters, I know a few days ago I reached the conclusion that this blog should come to an end. And a large part of me still feels a similar sentiment. But I suppose an even larger part of me is not ready to let go and take the gamble. Essentially ending this commitment, the journey of writing about love in an attempt to understand it, I am giving up. Mostly just giving up on the idea that love can be defined and calculated, the notion that I can guard my heart but still love by following outlined steps. Pretty early on in this experience I noticed there was no timeline. And this frustrated and angered me to no end. I wanted to know what to do! I wanted to know how to act, and what to say, and who to trust. Things that no one, apparently not even Myself, could breakdown for me.

So, I was left to blindly interpret love. Another feat I found near impossible. But, as I said, I am far too curious for my own good. As such I couldn’t just throw in the towel and feel the release of letting love happen, sweep me off my feet. The cynical side of me doubted that this would ever happen. And the questioning side continued to ponder.

I am writing now, not because I have the answer, but really to say curious doesn’t find love. Love finds you. Now, stop laughing at that cliche line and listen up.

Every love is different. Look at the relationships around you. Every person reacts and feels and behaves as part of a couple differently. So stop comparing. You can’t have what they have and they will never have what you will. People are too different and complicated for their to be such a simple pattern to love. While this makes the breakdown of love much more complicated it also makes it immensely more, well for lack of a better word, awesome. Realizing this is possibly my favorite discovery thus far in life (discluding the magic of a peanut butter and marshmellow toasted sandwich). Seriously though, it’s unqiue. And that’s exactly why it should not be ignored or underestimated or not said. Love, real love, makes you see that there won’t be another one to come along. That this couple, this pair is the right match and never again will there be another 2 that make such a combination. No one else will make you feel that same way, will have the same affect on your smile or your train of thought. True love does only happen once, because if you’re not a complete idiot you recognize the magic and hold onto it.

I may be too curious for my own good, and my constant questions and emotional needs to know what the future holds may drive my boyfriend insane. But that’s who I am. I am the girl that wonders. The woman with an eager and excited little girl on the inside who still believes in happily every after and has a strong urge to also believe in serendipity. I do get swept up, I do fall head over heels, and finally I am not afraid to let that happen.

Mostly because it’s pretty awesome to think that magic may truly exist.

May2

Sappy Cliche of the Day

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Sappy Cliche of the Day

I will keep this simple, mostly because there are very few things that I know for sure. That being said, I know this:

Two people being right for each other, connecting and lasting, is perhaps the biggest mystery of the world. Especially with so much anger in the world and things dependent on the whims of coincidence. I will never not be in awe of how two find love.

Even if the idea of love sometimes gets diminished by sappy romantic comedies and cliches. In spite of these notions I remain impressed.

Just a reminder that the really amazing feeling is rare and should never be absent. Allow me to use a cheesy line now:

Once you find it, don’t be afraid of the happily ever after.

May1

Fairytale Faith

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Fairytale Faith

I wanted to end this blog on a note of encouragement. Recognizing that love isn’t always about two people, and that it often enough starts with just one person. I have been lucky enough to experience the journey towards self love, but there is more I want to say about the two person kind. I suppose you’re not rid of me just yet.

For the most part I like to believe I wear my heart on my sleeve. A scenario that until recently would have been a complete lie. Coming for the habit of always trying to tell others what they want to hear, the “heart” on my sleeve in past relationships was altered, vague, and forced. I wanted boyfriends to feel loved, even if on my end it was more in a platonic light I did not bother to clarify. But now my real heart, the genuine one, is out in the world. Loud and present on my arm, making me want to wear long sleeves and pretend I am not lost to the emotion. Now, I have been genuine with my heart, caring for it first and foremost before finding someone else who might want to.

I was the last person in the world I trusted, my own voice that is. Until one day I stopped to actually listen to myself in a relationship, witnessing the words and light manipulation of a girl just desperate to be loved. Disgusted would be too harsh of a word to apply to ones self, but for lack of anything more intense, I was disappointed. I looked at the so called love being experienced and I saw directly through it, or I felt no giant pull to hold onto it, fight for it. So, three times in a row, I ended things. Abruptly perhaps, and maybe even thoughtlessly. But in the end I had to go off my authentic feelings, which as far as most of the relationships are concerned, had been lost.

You know that feeling when you try to hold your breath far too long under water and then suddenly get to burst to the surface? For the first dozen or so seconds you are gasping for breath, and then you start to take in your surroundings and adjust, until final the woozy feeling begins to subside and you feel like normal is coming soon. This is me in the end of a relationship. Or, more specifically, I let out a long and steady breath. I am not suddenly elated to have hurt someone else’s heart and I don’t do some kind of jig, I am not that cruel. More realistically I relax. Almost as if for months I have been both treading water and attempting to hold my breath underneath it intermittently. And finally, when I start to feel that sensation of normal again I get scared. And the cycle of needing a boyfriend would continue as my loss of love filled me with emptiness.

That is until this year. Bobbing around and wading my way through dating, all the while awaiting that sigh when I got to be alone again, had worn me down. I didn’t want that. I wanted to trust in someone, but to trust someone fully I needed to know I was worth trusting. And as far as the relationship resume was concerned, I wasn’t. I was practically leaping to hear someone love me, without being 100% when I said it too, or when I pursued it.

Step one then became trusting myself to validate myself. I can’t do it everyday all day. But finally when I look at who I am, or how I assume people see me I don’t shrug with regret. I don’t apologize for who I am (but I do still have a bad habit of quickly saying “I’m sorry” if someone looks mad). Now I apologize only for who I was, and I do this through my current actions.

Step two was realizing that love is a risk I had been far too scared to take for 3 years (technically my entire life). Realizing this was freeing to an extent, it allowed for me to feel new, almost like I had never given parts of me away. It also gave me permission to hope for love again. Because, if I had not really let love happen, if I had not released myself fully to having faith in a man to love me back, than I still had something left to offer someone. I still had the experience of falling in love, without red flags or hesitations, to look forward to. The kind of love that isn’t about high school romance, or expectations set in motion by the movies.

Step 3 was and is all about admitting what I want. And to some extent forgiving myself for getting my wants and needs confused in the past. Everyone makes mistakes, or so I hear, I just want my life now to be so overwhelming (in a good way) the other pieces from the past begin to fall away. And to not tell too much here, I think I am lucky enough to be starting to know step 3 recently.

Lately everything has changed. Time can move quickly and unexpectedly like that, until it feels like all you did was blink and your heart was in a new place. And at first this new feeling, the change, scared the shit out of me (pardon the language). Until I noticed I had gained one other thing. In addition to the self understanding, and love priorities, I had another new quality.

Faith. Most importantly faith in my feelings, but also someone to have faith in me.

Will it last? Will there even be love? I don’t know if I can share those answers beyond saying Yes.

Apr29

Finally Feeling, frequently fearing

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Finally Feeling, frequently fearing

I have been thinking a lot lately about shutting this blog down.

Now before you get ahead of yourself and ahead of my heart let me say that my discontinued writing would have nothing to do with love. For all I know, Mr. Darcy is still walking around just outside of my universe. But one perfect man was never what this was about. Quite opposite, the need for love was much more personal than finding some guy who can make me feel special. I have had that type in my past and still wound up feeling empty and alone. My need for love was selfish (in the best way possible). I needed to know I was lovable, authentically and with genuine acceptance.

So have I achieved this feat? Maybe. Maybe not. But what I do know is that I have reached an impasse.

I can either keep writing, with the subtle beginnings of feeling like a broken record for love and becoming the emotional equivalent of a flash flood. Or, I can walk away. I can stop emphasizing every single feeling I have and admit defeat. Love is not available in any dictionary, and it is certainly unavailable for me to decipher. I can’t expect people to listen to me on the subject when most of the time I don’t even listen to myself. My personal timeline is not a winner- I have walked away from first love, lied about more recent love, and forced feelings out of the people I am supposed to care about. For a girl who only wants sincerity and security I seem to always find a way to screw it up. Deceit should never be in the same sentence as the word love, however I manage to miss the mark every time.

Enough is enough. I am not saying I have given up on the Darcy search. I am not even saying that this will be my last blog. What I will say is I am tired. My own emotions have officially exhausted me. For two years I was wrapped up in the aftermath of an amazing first love. I was slowly drained of hope the further I got away from it. On top of that I experienced 3 more relationships, albeit short but intense, where I exposed myself to false hope. Fallacy became my greatest fear, and still is. With this lack of trust in my own gut came my inability to believe in hope. Refusing expectations as repetitively I have wound up disappointed in life.  Heartbreak, lies, and pretending have become enough for me to not want any of it. If those three descriptors lend themselves to love’s definition than I don’t want it. And in that way I am willing and happy to give up the hunt.

Priorities are all anyone can really control. We can choose what we pursue and what we do, but you can’t have power over another’s emotions. Heck, I just want power over my own. But since both these scenarios don’t seem likely I have re-adjusted my goal. Passion. Let me clarify. Not passion for love, for a man, for a relationship, or for the past. Passion for me.

I have a bucket list with nothing checked off. I have me. And I have my own words. These are my new focus. Maybe I will blog it, maybe I won’t. But what I will do is put my feelings first. I have spent too much time wondering how someone else feels and lost sight of how I feel. That is not enough for me. I need to know that I am worth everything I wrote on my dream list. And maybe the only way to do that is to stop. Stop forcing other’s feelings and listen to my own.

Either that or I will continue to appear to be an emotional nut case who writes about love and pretends she knows what she is saying.

Enough is enough. Time to put words into action. And an added benefit may be sounding more sane.

Apr28

Not that Girl

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Not that Girl

The series of questions I posed last night may not have been worth wondering. Getting swept up in the future and present was a fleeting distraction from my past. A past that was bearing down hard on me through the evening. Let me explain:

Two. A small number by any means, but for me it is one that carries a lot of weight. It has been two years since I walked into a residential treatment facility and admitted myself for an eating disorder. And while I will be the first to admit I have walked miles away from who I was that day in 2009, a connection remains. As sick, and mentally unstable as she was, she was and is me. Her pain, her suffering, and all her insecurities remain inside me. I may not act on the behaviors and I may be able to pretend I am not filled with guilt, but the truth is her memory haunts me.

Last night I reread one of my treatment journals. Truthfully I couldn’t handle reading it straight through and blatantly skipped sections I remembered would hurt. But the first couple of pages spoke volumes. I was dependent. Constantly referring to myself as a “little girl” at twenty years old, and discussing what other people thought of me. And whenever a self description made its way in it was less inspiring and more shattering. “I am not special.”

Mostly what scares me looking back is love. And there was a lot of love surrounding me at that time, just none inwards.

One of the “benefits” throughout therapy was getting to go on short walks as you got more stable. I remember going on these with a counselor twice a day for a while, fifteen minutes each. And while these walks saved my sanity they were also absorbed in my feeling that I needed a man to validate and save me. The majority of conversations that took place were about my first boyfriend, the one I was convinced had gotten away. How I missed him, needed him, wanted him to reach out or come visit. Only problem was he didn’t know. He knew I was sick, he had known that for a while. But he stopped talking to me in spite of that, in spite of all his promises towards the end to be there, to never walk away. So I never told him when I went to residential. I never told him, but I somehow depended on me. I hoped everyday he would call, or e-mail, heck I would have melted over a text message. But he didn’t. And I stayed silent until a long time after I was discharged.

We had been broken up almost a year when I went in. The relationship had ending due to ED and my instinct to push away the boyfriend who kept asking me to get help. At the time, and for a long time after, I thought he cared so much. All the promises and words of support, until he left. After I pushed him away he acted like he still cared, he said all the right words, but he did none of the right things. He walked away as much as I did. But somehow I expected him to rescue me. To hold me and be proud of me for seeking help.

My stomach turns as I think about how much I needed him. How much I depended on him to sweep me up and recognize that I was changing. It makes me nauseas to remember how much I identified myself through whether he cared. Even when he had stopped showing it.

Maybe I was not the first one to start abusing words in my relationships. Maybe I started saying things I didn’t mean because he had. Maybe I dated frequently once I was out of treatment because the 8 weeks I spent in it only made my emptiness grow. Every day expecting something, anything to tell me he was thinking about me.

But I wasn’t special. Not in my mind, and validated by his actions I continued to feel it. My body image may have improved, and my health was on an upswing, but I was not special enough to love.

I wish I had not talked about him so much back then. On all the walks and seeking out advice. I wish I had let it go. I wish I had not romanticized the past and admitted the disappointment of not being held onto. I wish I had healed. But instead I depended on men more. To validate and to hide myself.

It’s been two years since I held my breath and started waiting for Mr. Right to save me. Two years and many failed attempts. Many more nights of wondering if he thinks of me. And many more wasted moments.

I am not that girl. I am not her in a physical sense and I have mentally escaped most of her. But emotionally? I worry everyday I will be her again. Needing a man, waiting for him to tell me things will be alright, that I am special.

The fear doesn’t fade, but the dependency does. As long as I remember those walks, and all the nights I laid awake in the world of what if. I won’t go back.

Apr28

Quiz, Question, and Curiosity

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Quiz, Question, and Curiosity

No one ever really answers my questions, but I suppose I will put some rhetorical ideas out into the Universe anyways.

Why not? Do I not deserve to feel positively in a relationship because I have hurt others in the past?

Can the preconceived notions and opinions of my old habits change the here and now?

Why does my mind demand that my heart needs to be defined?

Is it possible that my heart won’t get it wrong, just this once?

Apr26

Maybe Magic…

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Maybe Magic…

Sometimes things change.

Sometimes the order that things were supposed to happen gets jumbled.

Sometimes I am wrong, the plan is wrong, and the experience exceeds all expectations.

Sometimes surreal could be truthful.

Sometimes I stop second guessing and believe.

Sometimes now is different than anything before.

Sometimes I learn new feelings that change my understanding, that challenege me.

Somettimes I don’t doubt magic’s existence.

Apr25

What’s there to say?

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What’s there to say?

All morning I was trying to make a decision. I suppose it has been a choice I have been pondering over for much longer than the last few hours, but this morning it seemed to sit with me the most. The conondrum started with a question, and as much things in my mind to tend to do, a domino effect cascaded with a series of follow up thoughts.

Today, this is all I have:

What now?

What happens once I really don’t feel like sharing my heart with the entire world, and instead I just want to be selfish and hold onto every new and all encompassing feeling to myself?

What if I simply want to be in awe and not have to tell everyone?

What if I really just don’t have the words?