The Truth We Avoid

As I continued processing the truth that was awakening in me, I began to recognize the parts of myself I had abandoned and the ways I had been living in denial.

Over time, it began to sink in.

For nearly two weeks, I moved through endless waves of emotion—anger, sadness, understanding, compassion, and then back to sadness again. It felt like being caught in a storm. The waves came hard and fast, barely giving me time to catch my breath. Every so often, a smaller wave would carry me gently enough that I could breathe again, free from it for a moment—until another one crashed into me unexpectedly and wiped me out all over again.

During that time, I asked myself again and again whether he missed me the way I missed him, whether he felt remorse for what had happened, or whether he had already moved on as though I had never existed.

Those questions were painful, but eventually I realized they were also keeping my attention focused somewhere outside of myself.

Deep down, I knew I had become an addition to a life that was already being lived. And although there were words of sorrow and regret, the choices being made continued to reflect something different.

That realization brought me back to a question that was much harder to answer:

Why do we stay when we know we no longer want something, or when something no longer feels the way it once did?

Why do we convince ourselves that we are trapped, as though our only option is to accept the loss and learn to live with it?

When we choose to stay while unhappy, we often begin justifying our choices. We create explanations that make staying feel safer, easier, or more reasonable—even when somewhere deep inside, we know we are avoiding the truth.

The harder truth is that we often have more agency than we want to admit.

We can change.

We can make a different choice.

We can face whatever follows.

And we can trust that choosing what is honest and aligned with who we are may ultimately be kinder—not only to ourselves, but to everyone involved.

I understand how difficult this can be because I think we can all relate to knowing something isn't good for us and choosing it anyway.

Sometimes it is as simple as eating something we know doesn't agree with us, convincing ourselves that the brief pleasure is worth the discomfort that follows.

Sometimes our escapes are more complicated.

We have countless ways of stepping outside ourselves when reality becomes uncomfortable. We reach for something that gives us temporary relief, connection, pleasure, distraction, or numbness. Whatever form it takes, the pattern is often the same: we find something that helps us not feel what we don't want to feel.

But temporary relief doesn't resolve the thing we're avoiding.

It simply fills the emptiness for a moment.

And when the effect fades, we find ourselves standing in the same place again.

That is why, through all of this, I kept coming back to myself.

I knew there were things outside of me that had hurt me. I knew there were words that hadn't aligned with actions, and I knew that I had been holding onto something that wasn't giving me what I truly needed.

But I also had to be honest about my own part in the story.

I was lying to myself, too.

Not because I didn't know the truth somewhere inside me, but because I didn't want to lose the connection we had. And perhaps even more honestly, because that connection had become a way for me to avoid some of the painful realities I was facing in my own life.

It became my escape.

A temporary source of release, comfort, connection, and satisfaction.

And there is no shame in admitting that now.

There is only truth.

I was reaching for something that gave me a momentary sense of being wanted and connected while, at the same time, asking myself to abandon what I truly wanted: a deep, real relationship with someone who would cherish me, respect me, meet me with honesty, and reciprocate the love I was giving.

This was not that.

I was giving freely and receiving very little in return.

But awakening doesn't always mean the pattern ends.

Bad habits have a way of dying hard. We return to them countless times, even after we've seen the truth, until eventually something sinks in deeply enough that we finally say to ourselves:

ENOUGH.

I did this myself.

Even after the awakening I had. Even after seeing the truth. Even after recognizing the ways I had abandoned myself and beginning to understand my own patterns, I still chose to remain connected.

And somehow, I found another way to make staying feel meaningful.

I told myself that perhaps I was simply meant to be a light in his life.

Because I could see so much of myself in him, I began turning my pain into a purpose. I told myself that perhaps I could simply be a release for him—that if our connection was no longer hurting me, maybe it could still serve some greater purpose. Maybe I could be a light for him through whatever darkness he was experiencing. Maybe, in some small way, I could guide him toward something he couldn't yet see for himself.

And because I could understand his pain, I found it easy to sympathize with him.

Too easy, perhaps.

I began using compassion to justify my own self-abandonment once again.

I have always believed in forgiveness. I believe deeply in the capacity to love someone beyond their mistakes, to see the humanity beneath their behavior, and to choose compassion rather than resentment.

But I am beginning to understand that forgiveness without boundaries can sometimes become another way of abandoning ourselves.

I can forgive someone and still walk away.

I can understand someone's wounds without making them my responsibility to heal.

I can love someone deeply without continuing to participate in something that diminishes me.

And perhaps this is where my own spiritual beliefs have sometimes needed to be questioned.

Because what I called taking the higher path—what I understood as truly loving someone, offering grace, seeing their light even when they couldn't see it themselves—could sometimes become a very beautiful story I told myself about why I shouldn't let go.

Maybe compassion was real.

Maybe the love was real.

Maybe I really did see something in him that reminded me of something in myself.

But was I actually being a light?

Or was I finding a spiritual reason to remain attached to something I already knew I needed to release?

That question has been harder to sit with.

Because sometimes we can become so committed to being understanding, forgiving, compassionate, and loving that we forget that love also includes ourselves.

Sometimes we mistake holding on for devotion.

Sometimes we mistake rescuing for compassion.

Sometimes we mistake being needed for being connected.

And sometimes we turn our pain into a purpose because purpose feels easier to carry than grief.

I realized I could forgive so easily that I sometimes forgot the pain.

I could understand someone else's perspective so deeply that I would lose sight of my own.

I could take what I believed was the higher spiritual path of loving someone unconditionally while quietly stepping away from the conditions I needed in order to feel safe, respected, and loved in return.

And perhaps that is the deeper question I am still sitting with:

Was I really being called to stay and be a light, or was I being given another opportunity to recognize a pattern I hadn't yet fully released?

Maybe the lesson wasn't that I needed to love him less.

Maybe it was that I needed to stop using love as a reason not to choose myself.

Because loving someone and letting them go are not opposites.

Compassion and boundaries are not opposites.

Forgiveness and self-respect are not opposites.

And choosing yourself does not make the love you felt any less real.

Perhaps true love sometimes asks us to stop trying to be someone's light long enough to find our way back to our own.

And perhaps the hardest realization wasn't that someone else couldn't give me what I needed.

It was realizing that I had been participating in something that required me to give up what I needed from myself.

I had been choosing temporary comfort over lasting truth.

And once I could finally see that, I could begin choosing differently.