Breaking up is not so hard…

…or is it?

(This post was first published in my March 2022 newsletter. You can sign up HERE)

How was your February? Did you get to do a bit of loving?

Let me tell you about MY Valentine’s Day.

I broke up with a friend. Yes, that’s right! On Valentine’s Day I told a friend to take a hike and don’t make contact with me ever again.

Without dissecting, analysing and writing a whole thesis about what went down, suffice it to say that I probably could have played the hand differently. From the moment I incited my now ex-friend’s vehement response, to the short and clipped reply I sent back, I could have saved our (very tenuous) friendship.

I did not want to.

It was not the first incident like this. In fact, it was only the SECOND incident where my throat was thrown wide open and this person went down it like a I-dunno-what. So clearly I was expecting it. I keep asking myself whether it manifested because I expected another incident? Or did I actually intuitively know what was going to happen, but was hoping to give Friend X the benefit of my own self-doubt?

Please do not feel you need to give your condolences or sympathies. It is true that I, myself can be a douche when I want to. My sense of humour and the jokes I make with my very, very few close friends are often a little stabby, jabby and raw. So, I have as much blame in what went down and I own up to it.

Still, it was not a friendship I asked for, and I knew from the first time we met that I should rather not pursue anything other than an acquaintance, at most. But I was becoming desperate for some good company, and after 4 hours of “courtship” I let this person in and we bonded a bit… and then it broke.

It is a pattern. One that I recognise and have now claimed and investigated. On the one hand I have this pattern where I seek out traumas: adolescent rape, running away from home, “accidental” self-injury. Middle-aged women who CLEARLY suffer from their own painful lust for male retribution. So I step up to the plate every time and I let it happen and end up licking my own wounds.

This time, though… this time was different. It still hurt – not going to defecate ye. But thank fuck for all the inner tools I acquired over the past few years, else I would still be devastated and licking my wounds instead of my balls. My journal and I had a loooooooooong session. I recognised the pattern, as well as a sub-pattern: one where I was avoiding friendships with people (mostly older women) who were actually good for me; people who could actually be a real support and less judgmental about who I am and what I am doing.

And BOTH those patterns come down to …

MOTHER!

Ain’t that funny.