A letter to the brokenhearted..

I don't claim to be an expert in this love game by any means. I can only speak on what I know and what I've experienced for myself. I haven't really blogged in a while, not because I had nothing to say but more because I had nothing that I absolutely had to share with the entire world. Nothing that was so important, it couldn't be expressed in 140 characters or less. But today I do.

Honestly, life has been good for the last few months and a part of me wishes I had shared a little more of the good with you. But hey, what can you do..

I saw an ex-boyfriend today. Now I use the term "boyfriend" loosely just to save us both a little time and aggravation as I try to explain our dynamic. Anyhoo, I  saw an ex today. This is only the second time I've seen him since our last huge fight which happened on Valentine's Day ironically.

Before this year I had never really had an amazing Valentine's but I never really had a bad one either. I'll save you the dirty details, even though I'm sure you'd love to know them, and just say it wasn't a good day.

Right now, I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to get over someone. I know it can be done but I cant quite get used to this person who had once been on the short list of truly important people in my life becoming nobody to me.

It's like good things are less exciting because this other person is no longer there to celebrate with me and bad things are worse because he's not there to make me feel better. Maybe that's why I haven't been blogging. I've always been a realistic person. I know that a bad day is not the end of the world and I know this isn't the end all, be all of men. I also know he had some major flaws that made it inevitable for us to part ways but that doesn't make me miss him less.

I share this because the number of women that I know who have felt exactly what I'm feeling or will feel what I'm feeling is endless and sometimes it's nice to know you're not alone. Sometimes it's nice to know that no matter how much another woman may look like everything is ok and everything is perfectly together, some guy has broken her heart. And if that has never happened to her, that means she has never truely loved anyone, and at the risk of sounding cliche, I'd say that's worse than the heartbreak. Think about it, would you give up every good thing that has every happened between the two of you just to save yourself this moment right now? I wouldn't.

Like I said before, I'm not an expert but I'll share one small piece of advice. Ignoring the issue doesn't help. Pretending to be ok will not ever be equivalent to actually being ok. Even if you trick yourself into believing it, at some point something will happen to prove to you that you have not gotten past it. For me, it was the first time I saw him again. It happened two months after we ended things. Two whole months of silence, and rarely a second thought. Then he walked into my job, unexpected, and just like that I completely fell apart. I started to cry.

I had envisioned what it would be like when we say each other again. Always thought I'd look great, feel great and have one of my signature sarcastic remarks ready to prove that I was perfectly fine if not better without him. Instead I there I was in a Popeye's uniform, hair pulled back under a visor and I could barely speak. I didn't even look him in the eye. I felt weak.

Since then I changed my tactics, I don't ignore how I feel anymore. I remember the good and the bad. I allow myself to miss him. I allow myself to think about him. I allow myself to let go naturally and it's working. I saw him again today. I wasn't happy but there were no tears. I'm truly letting go and it feels good.

Desi

"Rediscovering the Erotic"

For the last few months, I have been thinking about moving abroad after I graduate from college and since I came back form my spring break trip to Jamaica, the idea has gone from something I think might be "fun" and has become something I must do, something I must experience.

I have talked about this need to move and travel and get out of America to a few of my friends and a couple strangers. Some of them understand and some don't. I have been looking for a way to explain what is becoming a burning desire within me and no matter how I tried I just couldn't find the words to really get others to see why I wanted to go or why going to Jamaica made me want to move to London even more until I came across an article while browsing through Clutch Magazine.

In the article, the writer described travel in a sense I never thought of -- the "erotic".

This erotic she's talking about is not to be confused with western pornographic connotations, where we think of sex with no emotion-- the act without the feeling. The erotic she is talking about has everything to do with emotion and feeling and being aware of everything around you, not just in sex but in every aspect of life. It's about a kind of openness that many of us never feel because we refuse to leave our comfort zones even for a short period.

This is what I felt in Jamaica.

I went to Jamaica when I was a kid but this is my first real adult experience with travel. I felt such a sense of freedom while I was there. Not just because I was on vacation but because I was so open to the people, the food, the culture -- everything.

The last time I went, it was just to visit family and I was an uninterested 16-year-old. This time, at 22, I enjoyed my time like you wouldn't imagine. I didn't let fear get in the way of experience. I can't swim, but I threw on a life jacket and hopped on a jet ski for the first time. It was amazing! The guy who owned it told me it could go to 60 mph so I was determined to hit 60. I made it go to 63, and felt so free and powerful all at once. It was amazing.

I laid on the beach, I drank daiquiris and pina coladas, and whatever fruity drinks I could find, I ate things I can't find in Tallahassee, I went out, I danced with strangers and I let go of everything that burdens me in Tallahassee and experienced my erotic -- a self love and self awareness that I rarely get the time to think about here. And every day I was told that I was beautiful. It was wonderful.

I am a creative spirit. I like being able to be spontaneous, but I think my spontaneity has become a casualty of my college experience and random failed relationships, where routine eventually stifles my personality. I don't even write poetry anymore!

I'm sad because I know I have missed out on so many friendship and opportunities to meet and know people because I chose working over living. That is something I want to change if at all possible in my last year in college. I want to be open to new things and new people. I want to do what I want, when I want -- not just on that half day a week I get off work. 

I don't even know if you can really understand what I'm saying here unless you have traveled and have gotten the chance to really feel what I felt but it's a feeling like no other. Before I went to Jamaica someone that was very important to me disappeared from my everyday and I was in a sad place but the happiness I felt in Jamaica brought me back. It was like I forgot I could feel like that and now that I have been reminded I want that kind of happiness forever and always.

I don't know if it's necessary to go abroad to feel like this but that's where I felt it and that's where I plan to seek it again.

Surrounded by the unfamiliar, I think, may just be the best place for me to get to know myself and rediscover my erotic.

 -Desi.