twenty-twenty-two

I find that my best thinking happens when I am driving. There’s nothing like the feel of the wheel in my hands, and the open road beyond… and by open road I mean the one I imagine in my head because let’s be serious, I live in the city which means there is traffic 99% of the time. But on my most recent drive home from my parents’ house I was lost in a train of thought… it’s a new year. 2022. And with a new year there should be new goals, new dreams, new desires… but I am feeling very stuck. What is there to hope for anymore? What is there to motivate me anymore? It’s been two years since the pandemic has begun, two birthdays stuck in lockdown, two summers where there’s a taste of hope only to be crushed by the winter and the rise in cases. Two years in a constant state of anxiety. In the last two years my world has changed so much, yet it feels like I am no further ahead in my life. It’s so interesting how we humans tend to focus on all the things we are without, and pay no mind to all the things we have. Well, I’ve been thinking about what I have and what I’ve had are some of the worst heartaches I hope to ever feel, in these last two years. I’m talking about the type of heartbreak that prevents you from getting out of bed in the morning, that doesn’t let you eat, that has you crying on your kitchen floor. It’s the worst type. It shakes your world and it changes you and your perspective on life and love. You survive, but you have a slight limp in your walk now. How are you ever supposed to trust another human again? How are you supposed to willingly give someone another piece of you, when there are so few pieces of you to give out now?

No one can ever prepare you for what it feels like to find out that you’re the other woman. You hear about it in gossip columns, or from a friend of a friend, but you never expect it to happen to you. Well, let me tell you, you feel small. Used. Dirty. And you can’t wash it off. No one can ever prepare you for what it feels like to find out the person you fell so deeply in love with, doesn’t love you anymore and decides to go back to their wife whom they promised they were divorcing. Well, let me tell you, you feel small. Used. Dirty. And you can’t wash it off. The crazy thing is, I can’t ever hate either of them, no matter how hard I try because at one time they showed me a side of them I truly believe is their best side and I can’t help but see the good in people, even if they did hurt me. I just hope they are well. I know…crazy. But the thing is, you truly never think it will happen to you because you think you’re smarter than all those other women it did happen to, you think you’re not as naïve, you think “no way, this man is different”. But you’re wrong. And it’s not so much that these people have betrayed your trust, but that you don’t know if you can ever trust yourself again. I understand that things are rarely black and white, there is always a grey area. What I don’t understand is why people can’t be honest anymore. It’s like everyone has lost their ability to just be a decent person, that it’s easier to be deceitful… and the end result? You (and your best friends) are left picking up the pieces. Some people say they are better off alone, and maybe after these last two years I can start to understand it… but I don’t want to. Because I really think, at the end of it, we are all just looking for a connection. Someone to share a coffee in the morning with, someone to share a small inside joke that only the two of you will understand, someone to cook dinner with and sit in silence with, someone to come home to after work, someone to compromise with. Maybe I am a hopeless romantic or maybe I’ve been watching far too much sex and the city lately, but I refuse to let the people that have hurt me, make me cold and closed off. You miss too much of the beautiful things in life that way. Not everyone will hurt you. And until I’m ready for that again, I’ll lean on my girlfriends on the bad days because they understand, and on my family because they love me unconditionally, and lean on myself because I will always be there for me.

Maybe 2022 hasn’t started off the way we all hoped it would. And maybe we are all still feeling numb and dead inside from the last two years…some of us suffering from greater loss than heartbreak…but we can’t give up now. We’ve come this far already… so let’s hope that 2022 will have more beauty and bubbly, and less stress and sadness.

Cheers!
xx Vassilia