To The Avoidant: Maybe Peace isn’t the Absence of Pain

💌Dear It Girl,

I think I’m finally understanding why this hurts.

Not just this hurt. Pain in general.

A couple of years ago, I lost my brother.

And for a long time after that, I don’t think I really knew who I was anymore. Grief has a strange way of making you unfamiliar to yourself. You learn how to function. You learn how to get through the days. You laugh again. You go out. You make memories. You start becoming a person again.

And eventually, you realize:

I’m starting to feel like myself again.

That’s where I thought I was.

I had spent so much time trying to find my way back to myself that when I finally started feeling comfortable in my own skin again, I wanted to protect it.

I didn’t want a relationship.

I actually promised myself I wasn’t going to get into one.

Because my last relationship taught me that love could feel like survival.

I couldn’t settle comfortably into love. I couldn’t just be. I still felt like I had to be in grind mode. I had to change. I had to alter parts of my identity. I had to constantly think about what I said, what I did, where I was, how something might be perceived.

I didn’t feel safe enough to simply exist as myself.

So I told myself I was done.

Then I met someone who made me feel different.

And that’s the part that gets me.

Because I didn’t want to love him.

I wasn’t looking for anybody.

But my feelings changed.

I felt something.

And for the first time in a while, I thought maybe I could actually settle into love. Maybe love didn’t have to feel like something I had to survive. Maybe I could be myself and still be loved. Maybe I could let my guard down without immediately having to prepare for something to go wrong.

I thought it would be refreshing.

I thought maybe this time would be different.

And it was different.

Until it wasn’t.

Now I’m sitting here trying to understand why losing this relationship hurts as much as it does.

And I think I’ve been looking at love too narrowly.

Because love was never just about him.

Love is my brother.

Love is the people I’ve lost.

Love is the people I’ve met.

Love is the little girl I used to be.

Love is the woman I’m becoming.

Love is the life I keep imagining for myself.

Love is the memories I don’t want to forget.

Love is the things I thought would stay.

And maybe that’s why grief feels so endless.

Because grief isn’t really about one person.

It’s about everything you loved that changed.

And maybe that’s also why I’ve been trying so hard to keep moving.

I’ve had a blast this week.

I’ve laughed. I’ve gone to class. I’ve been outside. I’ve been creating. I’ve been living.

But sometimes I wonder if I’m running away without actually running.

Because eventually everything settles.

The noise dies down.

The plans end.

The phone gets quiet.

And when everything settles, there I am.

With myself.

With the loneliness.

With the memories.

With the questions.

With the fact that I miss him.

With the fact that I didn’t want to be in love in the first place.

And that’s when everything comes rushing back.

I’ve realized that avoiding pain only works for so long.

You can distract yourself.

You can stay busy.

You can tell yourself you don’t care.

You can promise yourself you’ll never love again.

But life has a way of bringing you back to whatever you haven’t dealt with.

It still comes back around.

And maybe that’s not punishment.

Maybe it’s an invitation to finally sit with it.

I’m starting to believe that peace doesn’t mean nothing painful will ever happen again.

Because that’s impossible.

People leave.

People die.

Relationships end.

People change.

You change.

Things you thought were permanent turn out not to be.

Maybe peace is learning that the inevitability of pain doesn’t mean I have to live in fear of it.

Because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying not to lose things.

I don’t want to avoid love because love can hurt.

I don’t want to avoid attachment because attachment means I have something to lose.

I don’t want to spend my life in survival mode just because I’ve learned that everything isn’t guaranteed.

I want to live.

I want to love.

I want to feel.

And yes, sometimes that means I’m going to hurt.

But maybe that’s the price of actually being alive.

I think about where I’ve been.

And I don’t know if your into numbers or not but I seen 333 today and this is immediately what I thought of..

Three things I’m learning to balance: life, school, and finances.

Two things I’m learning can exist at the same time: joy and grief.

And one person I cannot lose while I’m learning all of this: me.

Because I’ve already spent enough time trying to find myself.

I’m not going to lose her trying to hold on to someone else.

I miss him.

I loved him.

It hurts.

And I don’t have to make that mean I’m going backward.

Maybe I’m just learning that healing doesn’t mean the pain never comes back.

Maybe healing means that when it does,

I know how to come back to myself.

— Dear It Girl

Ps. Be you, be true!