I’m the People I’ve Loved

I never know what my trips back home to Maryland will look like. This trip was full of emotions. My emotions were heightened since I started the visit with my engine light (the serious turn off your car one) coming on minutes away from my cousin’s in Baltimore late at night. I hit some serious snow and believe driving in the moisture for two hours messed up some sensors. I had to stay behind a semi for those hours so that I could attempt to stay in the lane I couldn’t see. The reason I drive places instead of flying is so I can have the independence my car gives me. I immediately lost that and for most of my visit, I was without my car.

I don’t know if it’s “survival” mode or what but I am always having to make sure I don’t shift back to mentalities that are no longer for me. I am a people pleaser but in ways that I think will protect me from those I am trying to please. I think it’s part of the reason depending on who I am with I am quiet. My cousins love to remind me that I literally didn’t talk as a child and would just point at things. There are certain people or places when I revert to a place where my trauma is more prominent. When I am with my cousins (all in different ways) and honestly whenever I am in Maryland. It’s why I never know how I am going to do emotionally while I am there.

While in Maryland, I had a conversation that solidified some things with a person, and some other changes were happening at home that I would have to come back to. Then dealing with feeling trapped without the ability to leave. My car seems to have issues affecting its ability to drive whenever I am crying for hours straight not able to sleep over a man. Funny how life works like that.

If you’ve been around for a bit you probably have realized I come from complete chaos. I come from generations of hurt and abused people who do the same to their children and the cycle continues. I get to watch my cousins, especially my aunt’s kids. All three of them are similar but at the same time so different specifically when it comes to them handling their trauma and who they come from. Then there’s me who was raised by their mom for most of my life and I have my trauma from her. I handle my trauma and abuse differently than them. I’ve witnessed some of their kids and how they’ve been shaped by how their parents have dealt with their trauma.

I think a lot of it has to do with being in a religious environment most of my life but I try to shape myself to those around me, no matter who they are. I think whenever there is any difference or disagreement it means the relationship won’t last or can’t continue. That’s an unrealistic mindset to have.

No human is the same.

We are going to have different perspectives. Even with me and my cousins who all come from the same people and were raised by the same woman at one point or another. None of us respond to our past or current life in the same way. I get the pleasure of having a somewhat personal relationship with all of them and their kids. Sometimes a couple of years pass like this time but I do try to visit Maryland at least once a year. I like to think I get the best of both worlds.

I always come back happy or sad depending on the trip. I come back seeing myself in a refreshed perspective. I think traveling in general does that. It’s seeing how my Maryland cousins live, and then how my cousins here live, and how I live. Each of us is responding in the way we can or have been able to. The more I heal the more I hope I can embrace who I am with them. Embrace the parts of me that make me who I am but are different from who they are.

I am trying to learn how I want to go about how I love others and the attachments that I can create. After spending years of not being able to love others, I refuse to not embrace the love I have for people. I want to love someone even if one day they could decide to leave. Or have a conversation one random Wednesday night that solidifies that I might have to let them go. Despite writing that sentence and instantly crying in the middle of a coffee shop, I’d do it all again. I’d love them over and over.

One of my closest friends at the moment often says that though it might be temporary, she’s glad she gets to be part of my story at this time. We talk often on social media and text but we only see each other at work. It isn’t a secret that as soon as I had the opportunity I’d leave and move away from where I am. Our relationship would shift if that happened.

Life becomes easier when you accept that change is inevitable. I recently read Lighter by Yung Pueblo and I highly recommend everyone to read it. I underlined the entire book almost. He talked a lot about change and attachments. The whole book stuck with me but he said, “Embracing change is the path to alleviating and eventually eradicating suffering.” and “Love is freedom, while attachment is control.” These sentences had me sitting there absorbing what I just read.

I am learning how to love like I do but not get attached. Embrace the change. Feel the emotions. Authentically be me.

As long as it’s in a good and healthy way giving my love to someone will never be wrong or something I will regret. Everyone needs love. It’s not my fault whether someone can accept that love or not. It doesn’t mean I did something wrong or there’s something wrong with me because they couldn’t love me in the way I loved them.

We carry parts of people with us. I think about my plants. I have a type of monstera plant that I have propagated and made into new plants. Several people have pieces of me through my plants. Life is full of people and carrying them with you. I’ve had people tell me they’ve kept themselves at a distance because they know I’d get attached and they knew our time together would be short. The thing is how enjoyable can life be living like that?

Life goes on.

For many years to come, I’ll think about the night in Baltimore when I was on the floor crying in a bathroom. I was FaceTiming my friend because she was the only one who truly knew everything about who I was crying about. I just needed her. I thought about this being our future if I did move away and could no longer be a few minutes away. Neither of us are FaceTime or phone call people. So, we would have to be if we ever did get separated. While I was FaceTiming her crying and wanting nothing more than to be home, I got a notification from a man that I was not crying over. I laughed in the moment cause I was like “What is life right now?” A real-life realization of how quickly life can move on.

I’ll probably have my days or moments but I felt a sense of contentment coming home. A sense of freedom. Knowing that I can go back to being me. I can go back to chasing a life for me and what I want. I can genuinely think about moving or anything without worrying about how far I’d be from someone. I can be back to living life for myself.

“Letting go is essentially a profound acceptance of the present moment.”

Yung Pueblo

I always say I am the happiest when I don’t have a crush or am thinking about someone. I give all of me to someone and I need to learn how to not do that. I also learned that I am not good with being with just me and my thoughts. Which was a shocking realization given that I have been alone and on my own most of my life. I’ve never been in a relationship (at least anything official) which I am grateful given everything. I realized in the last year that a lot of my turmoil was because it was my first time being with myself. I went from seeing someone often to seeing them occasionally. I used to have dating apps that “filled” the space. It distracted me more than anything. It’s why anytime I am alone with my thoughts I have the urge to download them. Not because I want to meet someone on them. I want the distraction. I am learning that I do just about anything to distract me from my thoughts. It just isn’t the typical drinking, drugs, and sex that you think of. A good but also difficult realization.

If I learned anything from last year it was to go for the things that scare you. One of the things that scares me the most is loving people too much. I am made up of all the people I have loved and have loved me. As hard as it can be sometimes to love people, there’s something comforting about knowing I have pieces of other people.

Love is what makes the world go around…well and gravity ◡̈