Or “how I got my groove back”

It was 4 years. Almost to the dot. Spring 2020 to Spring 2024. Covid isolation, my former bestie going off the cluster B rails and picking me as her victim. The pent up release of cancer trauma; crying, fear and the onset of new found anger. Ending my cancer-era relationship with a narcissist who focused on devaluing everything about me. Believing him with my new scars and disfigured body. Zero estrogen. (Who knew how fucking amazing estrogen really is?)

I tried here and there but for the most part I didn’t date. I was celibate. I never felt physical attraction to anyone. I could read intentions and mismatched personalities like a graphic novel. I preferred to be alone or in the company of friends.

I didn’t necessarily decide to end my isolation. It might have been the introduction of antidepressants or the switch from lupron and letrozole to tamoxifen. Maybe it was just time. Who knows.

It would go on to become the central crescendo of 2024. 

We last spoke 9 months after “the incident” of March of 2024. When 8 years after his previous confession he once again confessed to his “more than a friend” feelings. 

I already knew. 

I figured it out by the way his eyes traced me across a crowded room. How his voice got multiple octaves lower when it was just us. How he became gentle and kind instead of his usual gruff ways. When he told me to go inside and warm up while he shoveled the car out of the snow. How it finally cumulated somewhere in Boise over too much booze a huge lack of communication, tears and a text announcing it was mutual. 

He said it had been ongoing for two years for him. Silly me had no idea until early 2024. We had some long conversations. He apologized for his behavior in 2017. “You didn’t deserve anyone to treat you like that, especially me” 

We started off good. Baby steps,communication, face time, my silly optimism. I thought he had changed. In some way I will always love him. However I know for a fact it’s not meant to be. I know I deserve more than he could give.

Although we are incredibly similar, we are equally very different people with our own ways of seeing the world and human nature.  He’s deeply avoidant. I have anxious / fearful abandonment issues and an unwavering commitment to transparent communication that would scare the socks off your average Gen X’er. 

Dear reader, I can be verbose. 

That was until his accident. It all shifted in April. It continued to get worse and worse until early December when our last FaceTime was a sad sobbing goodbye. We haven’t spoke again. I removed him from all social media. He likely has my number blocked but I haven’t tried it. I hope he is well, I really do.

It was at this point in early December of 2024 that I booked a flight to Rome to leave on Christmas Day. One way. I would make my way from Rome to Florence to visit a friend for NYE. I’d usually spent these holidays with him. This year I’d need a distraction.

NYE 24-2025 was my official rebirth. I rang it in from Florence, Italy. In the company of a charming 27 year old from Kosovo who spoke of the weeks he spent at 13, alone and escaping his war ravaged country over the mountains to Italy to declare himself “unloved” aka an orphan. We’d spend the next week drinking wine and making out in after hours clubs between the smell of his chain smoking and the cacophony of Florence. We’d return to my hotel or the empty airbnb above his bar and spend the rest of the night, morning and afternoon not sleeping. God bless 27 year olds.

I returned to Seattle in January of 2025 with a renewed sense of confidence, sex drive and self esteem.

It was time to make some changes.