Slow Burn

Public Journaling

The truth is, I always shy away from conversations about relationships or love. Why? I just don’t feel like I’m comfortable with people having that particular insight. Honestly, it can be embarrassing introducing your friends to someone new every month, being dead sure they’re “the one” until they’re not.

Then come the questions: “What happened to you and…” You don’t want to be reminded, and you swear you’ll never introduce who you date to your friends again.

The Cycle

Meet someone new. Talk to them consistently for almost two weeks. Feel the excitement. Throw caution to the wind. Make the prayer, you know the one: “God, if they’re not the one, take them from my life.”

Maybe God hears it, maybe not, but a few days later everything starts dwindling. Was it fear? Was it self-sabotage? Was it from them? You don’t know, but it ends.

Are you familiar with this feeling, or is it only peculiar to me?

It’s Not You, It’s Me

Relationships end for different reasons. Sometimes it’s past trauma creeping into the present. Sometimes it’s your partner. Sometimes it’s the fear of the unknown. Those are the emotional reasons. But there are also physical reasons, mental reasons, even spiritual reasons.

The Pace

For me, I used to be drawn to intense romance, meet someone, they’re head over heels, you’re with them all the time, walls come down quickly, and you shift your scales to balance theirs.

The habit I always had? Suppressing who I truly was to accommodate a partner and paying for it later. I’d do things that weren’t really me, just to prove something I can’t even name.

Thankfully, the women around me have shown me that’s not the way. Constantly making yourself small to accommodate others isn’t humility. Don’t cast pearls before swine, because they won’t recognize the value, and they’ll trample on it.

The Slow Burn

Maybe this is my own definition of frontal lobe development. I’ve learned from some of my mistakes. I’m truer to myself now. I’m no longer afraid of losing people who aren’t meant for me.

You see, I was trying to prove to myself that I could be in a relationship different from my parents’. And let’s be honest, there’s a stigma, even a shame, that comes with a failed relationship. Is it pity people give you, or judgment, when you admit that it didn’t work out?

But now I’m in a better place. I put myself first. I come whole. I come correct. I come to learn, because I know I’m not perfect , but I will not be small again.

I like this pace better. Meeting someone, being their friend, yearning for them, learning them slowly without rushing to hold hands, kiss, or touch until the time is right. It’s like nurturing a plant, gentler, saner.

Now, if someone comes at me with the fast-paced romance I used to know, it would scare me.

This may not be the story for everyone, but what matters is knowing what works for you, what you’re doing right, and what you may need to unlearn.

It would please me greatly to excel in my relationships as I do in other areas of my life. I’m learning to love slower, deeper, truer.

I almost didn’t post this cause the overthinking was too much.