2019: On Divorce and Loving Myself
I got together with my ex wife in 2013. It was a messy thing that happened on the heels of a very rough and painful end to my previous relationship, but I felt very safe with her, and together, we began to build what I at the time felt was my first "adult" partnership. I eventually moved from LA to the Bay Area to live with her, and we were together for several years before getting married in 2018. We had dogs, we went on international trips together, and I could see a stable future with her, which was extremely healing for me after the dark and turbulent end to my twenties.
During this time, I also got a lot more serious about therapy and digging into my mental health. I've struggled with generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and rejection sensitive dysphoria since childhood, which has led to communication issues in many of my close relationships and friendships. I have a lot more tools now than I did as a kid, and I look back with a lot of empathy for the mistakes I made, even as I also sometimes feel grief over how a lot of things went. All this to say, though I didn't see it at all at the time, the fragmentation of my relationship really began as I started healing and self-actualizing... which is, you know, never a good sign, ha ha.Her cheating on me with a friend of hers was not a surprise, but it hurt me deeply. We'd only been married about nine months, which I honestly count as a blessing now, but I was thrown suddenly into the reality that the life I'd been building and growing into was suddenly gone. I'd wanted to try to talk things out at first, only to find out she didn't share that feeling, and once I knew that, I felt an immediate urge to shed everything, in a way I'd never felt about a relationship ending before. I was so sad, and so hurt, but most importantly, I was angry, which is a feeling I am not used to allowing myself to feel, and it really saved and nourished me to feel something so self-protective at that time.
There were many extremely hard days those first few months, but, strangely, I felt strong. I hadn't been single since high school, or lived on my own, but without her, I suddenly and very clearly started to feel what I wanted for myself. I was done worrying about her; she'd made her choice, and now my whole future was my own.
The night the truth came out, I called my mom and my close friends in LA, and immediately planned to go down and see them. Being able to be with them during the scariest parts of the grief- the times where eating and sleeping stop, where every hour is a new wave of pain, and where the world feels surreal and liminal- was a cornerstone to grounding myself and finding my determination. The first meal I was able to eat in full, a week later, was some beautiful congee from Historic Filipino Town. Thank you, Los Angeles.
I knew immediately that I wanted to leave the Bay Area and move back to SoCal- it had never felt like home to me, in spite of my best efforts to make it one. Nevertheless, I did end up staying for a few more months, due to work, logistics and then COVID lockdown in 2020. I was deeply fortunate to live with friends while I was still there- more of that will be documented in my pages on The Bay Area and Covid Lockdown- but I am grateful I had a soft landing spot while I shifted my life.
One thing I immediately decided was that I wanted to get better at cooking. I never learned to cook as a kid- something my ex was always quick to make fun of- and living alone helped me practice cooking food in a stress-free environment. I love cooking now, and I feel thankful that I had that time to start exploring this part of myself.
All in all, I am much, much happier now. In all honesty, despite thinking my relationship with her was the "start" to my adult life, I think the divorce helped me grow up a lot more. I can take care of myself, and I don't need a relationship to define me. I'm gonna live my life to the fullest, on my terms. Nobody gets to take that from me. 
