When one door closes...
Updates on pottery date, an unexpected person from the past, and an unprompted reflection on attachment.
*All names in this Substack have been changed 🙂
Maybe I just think I’m deep, but a few times a month, I have these incredibly introspective, reflective thoughts first thing in the morning (those precious moments before I start airfrying my attention span by checking social media.) Sometimes I grasp small snippets of poetry that formed during a dream, and other times I have these clear-as-day realizations about love, my relationship to myself, healing, forgiveness, et cetera. Last Friday morning (9/27), I woke up to a startlingly abrupt thought about love and attachment. I can’t fully recreate what it was, but it was something along the lines of what I’ve written below:
Sometimes love is so much simpler than we make it out to be. My therapist recently asked me what it was that I loved about someone, and I found myself at a loss for concrete language. How do you put the feelings you experience, the devotion you willingly dive headfirst into, the soul-rattling admiration, or the glowing tranquility that love ushers in, into words? Sometimes I think that the English language isn’t really set up for that. Love, and describing what it is and why we feel it, can come in so many different packages. In our family relationships, we sometimes feel obligated to love others, and that obligation can come with a blind acceptance of treatment that so often wears and tears us. In romantic love, it can feel dangerous or superficial to acknowledge the physical attraction element of it, that love is sometimes born out of a biological magnetism that feels almost impossible to untie oneself from.
I’ve traversed the last decade of being in love with several different people convinced that my most intense romantic relationships were fated, star-crossed, twin-flame connections. I was certain that the pain of the breakups and my obsession with reconnecting was driven by a cosmic force, telling me that we were simply meant to be. TikTok tarot card readers only stroked these beliefs. My new therapist pointed out that this removes a lot of power and agency (on my side) from relationships, if I feel that I am solely at the mercy of the universe.
I’ve been researching more and more about attachment lately, and I recently learned through a TikTok (high brow research, I know) that when we are physically close with someone over a long period of time, our biological functions sync. This is an ancient, evolutionary survival method. Our heart rates slow or speed up to match one another’s, our breathing begins to line up, and even our stomachs will grumble back and forth to one another to signal hunger. And while the tenderness of these facts, that our meat suits are constantly relying on one another to survive a perilous winter or just an evening spent watching movies and eating takeout, makes me feel fuzzy inside, it also makes me realize how un-cosmic attachment can be. Instead of red threads pulled by past life selves that are linking us together in soul-binding rituals that can only be undone through painful breakups, cord-cutting spells and hard lessons learned, it’s sometimes just our biological need for togetherness.
If you spend enough time close to someone, your body will convince you that you do need them to survive, and that’s why separation can feel so physically threatening.
That isn’t to say that my previous connections weren’t precious, but this new way of thinking is helping me cope with the loss of them. I am not a dog in a pack, relying on my mate’s body signals to help me hunt, sleep, and attack. I am a girl with modern technology and a roof over my head, and as much as I would like to co-sleep with someone, I will not die if I do not. As much as I want to reach to my left and find someone else’s hand reaching back, it is not the end of the world if I grasp air.
Of course, loneliness is a massive stake in mental health and something that is plaguing modern civilization, and togetherness is something that human beings need to thrive. Having an emotionally colorful and passion-rousing romance is a luxury byproduct of being alive, something that I hope we all can experience, but it is something I can live without, at least for now.
Anyways, soul-searching aside, here are my updates.
I will say, I wrestled back and forth with starting this Substack in the first place, as it feels quite vulnerable, impulsive, morally grey, and potentially like a very bad idea. After I posted the first letter, I spent a lot of time anxiously pacing around the halls of my work. On the other hand, I feel deeply called to write about love and relationships, and this can be my space to do so.
My Saturday pottery date was very fun! It was the perfect “first date” for someone like me, tentatively putting myself back out there. The afternoon had a wonderful blend of structure and spontaneity, and I made a pretty attractive low bowl in class (with the skillful intervention of the pottery teacher. I couldn’t have done it without him <3)
This experience has solidified my opinion that a pottery lesson is a great idea for a date, regardless of where you’re at in a relationship. You can keep up a light back-and-forth conversation as you work, but you do need to be focused and silent at some points, so there isn’t too much pressure to talk endlessly if you don’t feel the need to. It’s very sexy and hands-on without feeling overly suggestive. Watching someone dip their fingers into a ball of clay and slowly, carefully widen the opening, gently cupping one's hands and steadying the wrists… I would definitely recommend giving it a shot. Folks were right about wearing clothes that you don’t mind getting splattered with clay, but it did wash out easily!
While the activities were fun and nothing felt awkward or forced, I’m not too sure about the connection. I forgot about this side of dating, that sometimes it can make you feel like shit. I’ve been working through feelings of deeply entrenched guilt and shame in therapy (fun fact! Shout out Catholic school!) and I do feel very… guilty about spending an afternoon with someone and not feeling the need to do it again. I guess it can’t be helped, and I don’t regret the time spent together. At the end of the day, if there isn’t much in common to begin with, what would really come of it?
No going backwards, only going forwards
A bit scandalously, I double booked myself this weekend.
Someone from my distant dating history (pre-pandemic, so virtually from another dimension) has reappeared. Up until last night, I was feeling quite conflicted about meeting up. For context, this is someone I met through a dating app in Autumn 2019. I felt like things started moving a little too quickly in the month-ish that we were seeing one another, and I called it off. We were not in contact for several years. A few weeks ago, they followed me on instagram and reached out via DM, asking to go out for a drink. I was very surprised, as I had the impression that they were quite hurt at the end and didn’t want to speak to me again.
I’ve been approaching this situation with a great deal of curiosity, more than anything. We texted back and forth pretty consistently the last two/three weeks, and when we were initially going to meet up, we both got sick and rescheduled. When I suggested a new time/day to meet up, they didn’t reply to me for five days... I can’t say that I went into my date with them last night with the best attitude.
But I was proven wrong.
We had some pretty transparent conversation about what we’ve been up to for the last four years, major relationships that have come to an end, how we both felt about where we left things in 2019, and why we were meeting up again. It turns out, they ran into a mutual friend a few weeks ago and asked about me, and that’s what inspired them to reach out again. I did make it very clear that I am not looking to be in a committed relationship and trying to enjoy being single for at least several months. They seemed to be understanding, but also admitted to having very strong Uhaul tendencies, which I informed them was what led to me shying away four years ago. That aside, we did kiss… it was very enjoyable… I think we will be seeing one another again… so yeah.
My new therapist is a tough cookie. When I was explaining my trepidation about seeing this person again, he grilled me for twenty minutes as to why I was going to show up. He didn’t seem satisfied with my answer of “just out of curiosity,” but, like my inability to create a complex sentence about feelings of love in an earlier session, I couldn’t pinpoint any other reason. I liked this person, we had fun, turns out that there was no bad blood, so why shut the door? Let me have fun, Daniel!!
So, there’s the update. I’ve already gotten quite lazy about using Hinge. I have received some crazy messages over the last week from total strangers before nine in the morning, and I’m thinking of posting an unhinged-screenshot round up at some point.
Thanks to all 15 of you for signing up! It means a lot that you’re interested, and I hope you find something (entertainment, even) from reading this. I’ll check back in on Friday.
Free Palestine forever 🇵🇸 Have an amazing week!