What do you want?

What did I want?

You have no idea. You don’t even know what the fuck you want.

Then it was over. Just like that. After months of fighting for him, it was over. I should have listened to my gut when it told me to run. I should have listened to my friends who had such outrage after telling them the things he said to me. I should have known when my mother didn’t like him that there was something up.

But I didn’t look at any of the signs. I plowed ahead with my own selfish need to figure out what the electricity means. The only thing is that I was molding into the person he wanted me to be and not the person I was. He wanted something particular that I could never add up too but I tried. I changed even core values about myself to fit for him. It was never good enough. It was never going to be good enough.

He attacked every piece of me. He made me feel bad for past choices, for present choices and for even future choices. I don’t think I feel hate towards him but I feel empathy. I knew even though the words were directed at me, they were really his own insecurities. The never feeling good enough was projection. If he made it so I was never good enough then obviously it wasn’t his issue.

Maybe that’s why when I knew it was finally done this time, that I could sit across from another person being the most vulnerable I’ve ever been. Telling him things that I hadn’t ever said out loud. Being my true authentic self. There was a comfort being with another person who wasn’t pretending to have everything figured out. Someone who was going through a rebuild just like me. Someone who didn’t make me feel like the things I wanted were stupid.

Until you start breathing again. I was breathing again on my own with a little help from someone else. It wasn’t that I needed outside validation, it was just nice to have it. To be my authentic self with someone who didn’t expect anything but that.

So maybe the first guy was right. Maybe I could never be truly vulnerable with him but that in itself is a sign that something is wrong. It’s like having a friend that you can’t tell everything too because you know they’re going to tell everyone or make you feel bad for those specific pieces.

I’m imperfectly perfect. It’s not something I’ve ever been able to accept. The strive for perfection has been a struggle my entire life. Be the perfect friend. Be the perfect daughter. Be the perfect person. But none of that is ever attainable. Perfection doesn’t exist. That’s why on my strive to be perfect for him that I lost pieces of me that I loved.

I guess he was right when he told me I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know that what I wanted was to be able to be vulnerable with someone without judgement. That I wanted to be accepted for the spirit that lays beneath my physical body. That I needed to start breathing again. Toxic people manage to cause a storm but as quickly as they come they go. It’s how you pick up the pieces in the aftermath that matters most.