What I Write When I Don’t Feel Like Writing
Exploring my dreams, loneliness, baby panic and post break-up dating
What do I write when I don’t feel like writing?
I jot down thoughts that exist alone in sentences and rarely expand into anything more. In the immediate aftermath of catching my ex cheating on dating apps, my writing was fueled with angry, spicy posts about the lessons I learnt. Today, four months on, and my anger with him is passing and a flatness of feeling has stepped into that space. I’ve gone deeper into introspection as I try to make sense of it. I’ve struggled to write, so I’m sharing my notes.
Time heals. Yet on days that I think about him less often, I feel proud of myself that the thoughts of him are reducing in my head.
It’s on those days that he invades my dreams.
Those dreams are violent and grotesque. In those dreams, I’m a victim, often violated in a brutal way.
That must be how the betrayal truly feels.
I was happy in that relationship and would have liked it to continue. Yet, now I’ve had time to imagine someone better suited to me.
I’d like someone more dynamic and engaging with a better relationship with their work.
Perhaps a deeper thinker.
My imagined future husband is HOT.
I wonder if I was settling with my ex.
Perhaps it was the dynamic of his indifference and my trying to move things forward that kept the relationship alive.
I won’t do that again.
That means that I may be alone for a little while.
My life often feels quiet and empty.
Sometimes that’s wonderful and sometimes it’s a little sad.
Sometimes I like the bad weather because I feel less pressure to go outside.
I’m reminded on sunny days that I don’t have someone to go outside with.
I hate the length of the bank holiday weekends. Two days of the weekend is enough if you’re single and living alone.
There are people who don’t know what that’s like.
And I resent them for it.
The feeling of loneliness is a moment.
When talking about loneliness, I use the word: sometimes.
I learn to do things that you might do as a couple, but alone.
I get a coffee and listen to the couples around me planning their holidays. It's funny how they’re running through the same destinations that had been on our list.
After going out into the world, returning home is a relief. My home becomes a resting spot rather than a place that I’m stuck in.
I miss having someone to cook for and then realise that someone could be me.
Gosh, he really used to do most of the washing up.
My reward for doing it all myself is that when I’m finished, I get to sit down and watch TV shows like Selling Sunset and Sex And The City that (not all) men roll their eyes at and make boring, obvious complaints about.
Our bodies hold the answers.
Shortly before I caught him cheating, I was crippled with pain in my stomach like nothing I’d felt before.
That same morning, I’d written: ‘Today may lean towards a bad day.’
When I bumped into him outside the supermarket the other day, (literally, a fear I wrote about in a newsletter) my body pulled me away before my head could decide what to do.
My body is a compass.
My life often feels quiet and empty.
Sometimes that’s wonderful and sometimes it’s a little sad.
Age and baby panic is about perspective.
I’m not happy about turning 35.
Yet a friend said that she was having baby panic at 32 and I recall that I did too. How young that seems to me now.
Age isn’t just a number when it comes to the biological clock.
Anecdotes about people you sort of know who are older and had a baby aren’t helpful. At all.
I’m getting a little tired of people’s inability to sit with other people’s pain.
Unsolicited advice is annoying.
People seek to fix and solve problems to deflect from their own.
Our wounds aren’t healed with solutions and actions but with the ointment of connection. We need to feel seen, heard and understood.
My friendships run deep and have lasted long.
My romantic relationships are almost a fad in comparison.
I need ease in my life as I move through the pain.
Dating is not ease.
I work intensely to pay the rent, which I burden the cost of alone. I have to do all the household chores all the time and it’s on days that I’m most tired and need to rest that I must send out likes, opening lines and flirt my way to secure a meet-up with someone who’ll probably turn out to be terrible.
Patience is the utmost skill.
Unfortunately, on a date, you know in the first few seconds if you like the person.
I’m here now, I better make the most of it.
It’s my job to find something interesting about them.
The downside of this is that they think the date is going well when it isn’t.
Don’t say: ‘You’re more interesting than most girls’ or any other comments that you think are flattery, but have a misogynist twinge.
You never know what someone’s going to be like until you meet them. Yet, you have to be excited to go on the date. Unfortunately, so far, this has led to disappointments rather than pleasant surprises.
Is fancying people binary? Or can it be something that grows? Does it depend on the person?
I can tell in less than half a second if I don’t fancy someone.
I haven’t fancied anyone for a long time which feels like a thirst.
These are some of the thoughts that are swimming around in my head as I prepare for the next chapter. One where I feel like writing again. I’m adjusting and imagining a better future that I’m not fully ready to step into just yet.
Where do I go from here?
With love,
Tiff x
Liked this? Try I Feel Shame For My Desires
I appreciate the vulnerability here and very much relate to this meandering thought process. Sending love 💕
Absolutely loved this Tiff, thanks x