<span;>After yesterday’s prolonged silent scream into the cold abyss of no comfort,  this morning it came to me-
<span;>a simple yet profound epiphany.

<span;>I didn’t fall in love with him.
<span;>I fell in love with me.
<span;>With my own feelings
<span;>long dormant and coaxed to the surface
<span;>at the time I met him.

<span;>Prior to that time, nearly four years ago,
<span;> I had been going through some major internal shit; banging my head against walls, meeting only dead ends, knocking furtively on doors that remained closed.

<span;>He was kind to me. Warm. He listened. He used words like “tender soul” to me. That was all it took.

<span;>I began to feel alive again,
<span;>though I was never dead-
<span;>just bored,
<span;>bewildered,
<span;>disillusioned,
<span;>disenchanted.

<span;>If I was “lost”, it was deep within what I deemed a hopelessly lonely life.

<span;>Thus, what looked to be a “connection”, a burgeoning “romance”, wasn’t.
<span;>And deep inside ( where honesty resides), I think I always knew that. But we called it love.

<span;>He was the echo of my own voice.

<span;> I remember something Madonna said along these lines, during an interview many years ago… something about how being in love really means you are falling in love with yourself.

<span;>Exactly.  It’s so blindingly clear now. I saw positive qualities in myself because someone told me they were there.
<span;> And yes, I have let insecurity, fear of abandonment, and attachment ‘issues’ steer the ship of my life as long as I can recall.

<span;> And it would seem paradoxical..as I felt like I was both losing *and* finding myself when “in” his sphere.  I felt, and very pleasantly, as if I, with my addled mind and myriad problems,  disappeared.
<span;>This brings to mind Mazzy Star’s  hauntingly beautiful, eminently melancholic  song; “Fade into You”

<span;> I always sought an escape from myself.  Food, sex, booze, shopping, relationships. I had to template of what a balanced or healthy one was. I even dove headlong and pretty deeply into Dominant/ submissive relationships. I desperately wanted to give up control. I thought I needed to be nurtured, protected, guided. All positive traits to seek, but not at the expense of my autonomy.

<span;> I wanted to see me..through another’s eyes. And it was the same for him, I now realize.

<span;> It was an unintended act of selfishness, though I cringe at that ‘diagnosis’. And love..REAL love is supposed to be unselfish. It is not supposed to feed the ego. Real love’s goal is the well-being of the other. Not a takeover.

<span;>I am the same person I was before we met.

<span;> When “it” ended, I felt discarded. Tarnished. But in reality? I have been polishing my own gold. I never needed him for it, though I suppose he was a kind of conduit.

<span;>And today I shine brighter than ever. Without him.

<span;>(Look at me…being my own amateur psychologist.)

<span;>We MUST truly know ourselves, or we keep seeking it in others. The songs seem to tell us to lose ourselves in the arms of another. But that is false.

<span;>I blame dopamine.
<span;>And  those sly molecules of serotonin and oxytocin that level up.
<span;>Meeting him was a hit.
<span;>A fix.

<span;>Falling in “love” is chemical in nature.

<span;>I am not, in fact, “lost” without him, despite these months of acute pining.
<span;> I never was lost. I fell for whom I discovered..living inside my own heart.

<span;> And him? Well he similarly fell for himself, as seen through my eyes.

<span;>Am I a bit guarded and cynical now? I suppose. But this was (is) a lesson I needed to learn.

<span;>I still believe in love.
<span;>I am coming to believe in myself,
<span;>and all that my heart holds.
<span;>All is has to offer.

<span;>This is day six now,
<span;>of being tear-free.
<span;>It’s because this truth finally shined
<span;>like dawn on me.

<span;>Lisa O’Neil-Guerci
<span;>3/12/2023