Relationships are a Circus

I wrote my first breakup elegy. A testament to a (relational) life that felt more like a survival strategy than a sacred connection.
I know you’ve been there too.

Stale partnerships that feel worn out, past their expiration — but there’s no visible mold, so you’re still feeding off it.
Will it make you sick? Maybe.
Can it cause a parasite? Likely.
But we’d rather take what’s in front of us than go hunting for something new to eat.

It’s so much… work.
Even when the consequences could be detrimental, we humans go for the quick fix — the immediate gratification — the short-term pleasure over the inevitable stomach ache.
And as we all know, hardly anything feels worth it once we’re bowled over with sharp, shooting pain in our guts.

Of course, it wasn’t all catastrophes and doom-scrolling.
I take with me the memory of an electric, magnetic attraction — unlike anything I’d known before.
I had never been desired at that level. It was all-consuming, enveloping even.

It could take me out of my mind and into my body — a rare gift for me, historically.
I can now appreciate beauty in a more visceral form.
I can acknowledge that love can feel like a pulsing, living current —
a felt sense of touching another person’s heart.

I had never known the power that hands and lips could hold
until ours intertwined.
For that, I am grateful.
It made me feel both powerful and feminine —
also a rare gift for me, historically.

Most of us stay in these relationships far past the expiration. I did. Twice.
Why? Because loss is challenging.
It’s incredibly isolating, and our culture does a terrible job normalizing the withdrawal tendencies we all experience after a severed connection.

The disruption in your daily rhythm is jarring. This person was your shadow.

You’re walking around without a piece of you in tow.

Something feels perpetually missing, shallow, and cold — like a dimmer switch turning down the color and energy available to you.

It’s as if all the furniture in your living room has been removed and you’re forced to stand around without a place to rest.
TV is no longer interesting. Dinner with the girls feels lacking.
And your Spotify starts sending you “Made for You: Melancholy & Fall Feels” playlists. Thanks for that.

The remedy of time creeps along the calendar — 30 days no contact, two months post-breakup — but it doesn’t feel celebratory.
It feels like an affirmation you repeat but don’t yet believe.
I don’t need you. I deserve better. You fell short.

But we both know that’s not what you believe with absolution.
You think, Was it really that bad? I did a lot of mean things, too. Maybe I won’t tell my friends if I reach back out… at first. Knowing someone is better than knowing no one, right?

The truth is, you never really knew them — not as well as you thought.

You’re not grieving the loss of the other person as much as you’re grieving what you thought you knew about yourself — that you were more loving, patient, wise, self-aware than you turned out to be.

One Achilles heel in my most recent relationship was a sense of “shared reality.”
But that reality was colored by my paranoia that I couldn’t fully trust him — that his mistakes, maladaptive patterns, and manipulations outweighed my own.
The irony is that this was still my reality.

If you’re always not “as bad” as the person you’re with… what does that say about you?
Is that the measuring stick I want to use for my worthiness?

One of the most valuable questions we can ask post-breakup is,
“What role was I playing?”
and
“What did I gain from playing that part?”

For me, I’m classically the one who is structured, disciplined, incessantly driven, and in charge.
What have I gained from playing this role?
To feel in control.
To predict outcomes.
To covertly avoid my own growth.
To disprove the fear that I am not what I attract — that I am better.

But I am not. I am flawed. Unhealed in many ways.
I only experience different forms of dysfunction — not different levels.

When you expect perfection, you will be perpetually disappointed.
When you assume the worst, you will receive the least.
When you only want to win, you inevitably lose.

The Lion Tamer and the Lion

I am walking away.
Not because I want to.
But because you kept the circus alive.

You are the ultimate predator — inherently at the top of the food chain, yet choosing to perform for peanuts.
Your reputation is to lead and protect, but your appetite is untamed.
Living in the spotlight, hungry for applause, but returning to a cage alone.

I am the disciplinarian — tirelessly trying to train, tame, and teach a wild animal.
Repeating the same sequence, expecting you to jump through hoops.
But my composure has grown tired, always suppressing play for poise.

You resent my self-discipline and structure,
my compulsive need to keep rehearsing.
We were together each night, side by side, but living worlds apart.

We weren’t meant for The Greatest Show on Earth after all.
I no longer want the title of tamer — to be known for diplomacy and mastery.

I may have once conquered a beast, but I bear scars from your attacks.
I am stepping off the pedestal and taking off my costume,
for I am wild too.

I may have survived,
but I have not succeeded.
I can no longer keep you.