I can’t say I wish I hadn’t let it get this bad. Because it had to get bad to get good. The greater the shake, the deeper the cracks. 

This starts as a letter to him, describing the beauty of my depth, in case someday he is ready for it. Him, or any of them for that matter. Any of those that I loved, but asked more from, so they left. 

This ends as a letter to myself. Reminding myself of the beauty of my depth, so that when it proves too vast for someone to understand, too broad for them to hold, I do not turn from myself and reach for them, but turn to myself and let them go.

I lay awake three days after he turned away. I went through the “unphased” phase, then the dwelling phase, the replay phase, the bargain phase, the text-and-pour-my-heart-out phase, the try-and-distract phase.

And now I shifted around in the thick tropic air, kicking off blankets and rearranging pillows under my knees, because along with the heartache, my back had been out for weeks. Which added to the frustration, as I couldn’t even do the things that make me feel confident, or interesting, or powerful. The things that help me flip a “fuck you” to anything that hurts.

So I was mad at my back too. Sad at my lameness. Scared of my inadequacy.

Another memory bubbled up, a moment from our time together. When you’re hopeful of someone you collect all the moments and stash them away. When the magic snaps, they break loose, ripping from your gut, floating up through your chest, where they often get stuck.

That’s where they’d been catching for days, right where they hurt the most. I would hunch around them and cry, wracking my brain for answers. 

I tossed and turned and tucked the pillow under my knees and felt my sacrum sigh and soften, my body finally comfortable, except the burning thoughts trapped in my chest. I exhaled an exhausted surrender and just gave up. Let it be, let it burn. Let it rise like hot air, continuing its journey through me, up and out, lighting up the places I was stuck on him, and burning the tethers one by one.

That felt good. Just lay and let the sadness rock me. The pain was there no matter what, no matter how I tried to choke it down. But as I lay in the dark, feeling the bubbles rise and break from my core, from my lower back, I realized that the pain was not that bad if I didn’t resist it so much. 

The weeks had passed stuck in my head, in my hurt body. The desire for a man, the confusion if he felt the same, the subtle but potent waiting and hoping for validation. And the back pain came and went with each day, cycling incomprehensibly, adding to the insecurity and frustration. I wanted to show him my adventure side, but all I could do was lay at home. I blamed myself and my body for his lack of interest. For my solitude in general.

I went for acupuncture. The doctor looked at me with love and told me what a wonderful person I was, and I blinked back tears. The kind of deep support I’d been missing. And then somewhere in that hour, face down with needles in my sacrum and back, I slipped a notch into relaxation, and my breath released from where I’d been holding it for weeks. The state of arousal I’d been stuck in. The shift was so stark it caught my attention. I’d been focusing on someone elusive and frustrating, suspended in tension for weeks.

Sure I’d rested and done “self care”. But not in a loving way. Love is not just a feeling, or an action, but both. It is action with feeling. I can say I love myself, and never act on it. Or I can act, but without the tenderness behind it. I’d been acting, but in frustration and resentment. 

The next morning I cried again, still stuck in grief. I listened to my favorite break-up expert and texted the friends who I knew could hold this sadness, the deepest moments of my transformations, allowing myself acceptance enough to reach out. And then I went to work, where I ignored professional boundaries and vented to clients. Shared how much I craved a partner to support me, how sick I was of being alone, and allowed them to soothe me with kind words. 

And in between sessions, I lay and stretched and breathed, but now with gentle lovingness. I envisioned stuck chi breaking and flowing. I remembered stillness and silence, and watched my back spasm and relax rhythmically. With each release, I found a little soft smile somewhere deep inside me. Some sort of love or compassion for myself. And some sort of confidence too, in watching the quality of my own compassion take away my own pain. In watching me support and heal myself. In figuring out how to hold my own space.

And something shifted then with my narrative. In regarding myself with compassion, I realized I had always seen my depth as a burden. I had labeled my soft vulnerability as weakness that was keeping me from true love, a vanquishable monster that must be hidden or hunted and eradicated.

But in holding it lovingly, it became something else, something sacred and special, something tender to be protected, not overcome. I placed a hand on my sacrum and whispered, “I love you. I will protect you.” 

I saw then that I was indeed strong enough to hold myself, that all I needed was the right approach, and complete acceptance. I realized suddenly that the problem was not that I was too heavy, as I have believed through every love affair and every heart break, but that the men were simply not strong enough, not ready. That I had not chosen wisely.

And the real problem was that I betrayed myself. That I reached so far out from my core, casting my gaze at someone I barely knew, and could hardly trust, and imagined because of a few conversations and gentle touches, that they were qualified enough to hold the vastness of me. But in reality, how could I know who was qualified if I didn’t even know how to hold it myself. It burned me like a burden too, and I’d been anxious to hand it off, to share the weight I couldn’t slow down enough to appreciate. So I leaned and leaned, emotionally and energetically, towards a support that didn’t exist, and my body and my back strained with the force of it.

Through this new lens, I saw the whole situation again. The aloofness, the confusion, the tension building in my body. The friction between his hesitance and my openness. I have grown into a women who voices her needs and truth, even as she fears them and expects rejection. Who invariably honors her depth, even as she resents it. 

But now, to honor it and not resent it, that is perhaps the last step. Not that I will never face rejection again, but maybe this will be the last time I hurt myself so much in the process. The last time I question my needs and whether they make me attractive or not. The last time I beg someone to understand my magic when they cannot. 

That little smile stayed with me, a permanent shift I hope. I had become the protector of my tenderness, a role I plan to take seriously. I fell into radical self presence. I swelled with an inner power, and the next time I saw him, he had turned from a high king to a young prince. Or perhaps just that I had become a queen. All parts of me finally made sense, and had value, and were working in harmony with each other. Every time I drifted out of myself, pulled by the force of him, I veered back, held myself, spoke unashamedly, or took a moment alone, despite old fears of pushing someone away. That someone wasn’t as important anymore as I was to myself. 

And so a lightness returned to me, and spread to our friendship. And my back slowly started to calm, to loosen, to let me move and live again. I started a letter to him in my head, an ode to my depths. And I realized I haven’t been writing, and writing is where I honor those parts of myself the most. Writing is an act of self acceptance too. So what started as an explanation for the man who will someday be strong enough to hold me, is ending as a reminder that I am already strong enough to hold myself. Because I am not heavy, but vast. I just need the right container.