He Wasn't My Twin Flame...

It stems from childhood, the need to be heard and seen and loved and cared about; nurtured. Being seen is always what I crave in my romantic connections, but in a 3-Dimensional reality, 99% of men view me as a physical object they can toy with instead of feeling the vibration of my soul, thus utterly misunderstanding my entire being. It is painfully prevalent to witness powerful women base their self-worth on the perception of a man. It was something I was culpable of for 18 years. This culture has perpetuated the importance of our physical bodies, material items, and social elitism; it has become more significant than what a person’s soul has to offer. As someone with a maimed inner child, feeling seen as my soul seemed like a fantasy I would dream about, based on fairy tales and Disney movies. I didn’t think it was real, let alone feasible, until 3 months after my last relationship.

May 2020:

He was the nicest guy I had ever given a chance to, which would normally have turned me away from him completely. There was just an unidentifiable mein about him. On our first date, we got drunk on the beach and went to a private pool. Before sunset, he showed me where the bathrooms were. There were separate men’s and women’s bathrooms, complete with a handicap accessible stall, two sinks, and a shower.

“Mine’s not working, it’s just cold,” he said.

“Oh, that’s weird, mine’s hot now. You can shower in here if you want.” I said, knowing exactly what I was doing.

“Are you sure?” he asked. He knew what he was doing too.

He kissed me when I was rinsing out my hair.

“We don’t have to if you want to, seriously.” he said.

I thought to myself, how nice can he really be if he fucked me on the first date. I should give him a chance.

October 2020:

The walls started buzzing. Well, it looked like they were.

“Woah.” I said. I laughed. The happiness in my heart could only be expressed by screaming, but I kept quiet so I could keep it all for myself.

“Let me see your eyes,” he said.

Every movement looked like it rippled. Time blended into a slow-motion odyssey.

It was difficult to see how large his pupils were in the dark hotel room.

My jaw started chattering. His fingers were water, and my skin was parched; behaving like it would never drink again. We laid naked for hours, talking nonsense. We took a shower just to sit and laugh at each other while the water streamed between us.

“Tell me your life story,”I said.

His father got sick when he was younger; passed away when he was 11. It was just him, his older brother, and mom. He was 16 when his mom got sick. She got hit by a car when he was 17 and she passed too. We visited his brother a lot, soon it was like he was my brother too. He lived with his Godparents. He never went to therapy. He smoked a lot, he drank a lot, he was never really alone. He would do anything to avoid his sadness. He just ran and ran and ran, living in complete avoidance.

It was truly tragic. I looked at him in awe because of his stoicism.

“It got better when I met you,” he said. “Your turn now.”

My father was deployed for almost my entire infancy. They got divorced when I was two and I was left with a mother with abandonment issues. She raised me to be just like her, thus projecting those issues onto me. After puberty, I started getting a lot of attention from boys. I grew up insecure, abandoned by my dad, unwanted from my brother, the baby and black sheep of the family. I quickly understood why I was getting attention. The validation was all-consuming. Years went by and I fully understood myself to be an ass to grab and ghost.

My life was not nearly as tragic as his, but even still, he held me like I had been to hell and back and was safe now. He saw me. He saw my soul. I had never experienced love like this.

Or maybe I had just never experienced MDMA. Nevertheless, from that day forward I loved him with every atom of my body. My soul vibrated for him and him only.

April 2021:

“I feel like you just don’t care about me honestly,” I said.

“I feel like you’re crazy,” He wouldn’t look at me.

I started to cry. I wondered if I really was just crazy for thinking he didn’t care about me. He kept leaving me alone when I was passed out or sick in the bathroom, even when I asked him to stay.

Then he started crying. “I just have a lot on my plate right now,'' he admitted.

“I don’t want to be a burden.” I said.

“You’re what’s good on my plate.”

Of course he cares, he’s crying. I held him until I had to leave.

May 2021:

“God, it’s so annoying when you do this,'' he said through his teeth, “You made me drive drunk. Are you happy now? You begged me to come and now I’m here and you won’t even touch me.” He left.

I became reticent. I was deflated.

. . . .

“This is how much I care about you. Look at me right now. Can we please leave? I just want to sleep with you in my bed, this is your last night before you move. Please,” he bawled.

Bella’s mom would never let us leave if we were drunk and he knew that.

“I don’t give a fuck what Bella’s mom says. I’m leaving,” he said, forcibly grabbing my face. He left.

“I’m sorry honey I just can’t let you go since you told your dad you were staying here.” Bella’s mom said.

“I just love him so much.” I weeped into her shoulder.

. . . .

“I would marry him. We’re going to break up the day I leave in order to preserve our relationship as much as possible,” I told my dad.

“That’s very mature of you guys,” he said.

. . . .

We had a plan. He gave me a promise ring made of rose quartz. It wasn’t supposed to be the last time he ever saw me. When I left, he told me he loved me every day. Two weeks went by, and I discovered who he had been spending his time with. She was one of my “friends”. I spent the entire night trying to catch my breath. My chest felt too heavy to inhale the air was too stale my clothes were too tight. I sat on my pillow, knees curled to my chest, my head held by my trembling hands. The room spun and I couldn’t speak, nothing but violent sobs left my throat for days after that. I cried for 20 hours straight. How could I have spent a year loving him with everything in me, planning a future with him, to end up negated after 3 days. Did he ever love me? Was he loyal while we were together? Why would he do this to me? He was going to marry me. I had a queue of questions that raced almost as fast as the room kept spinning so I called him over and over and over. Shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shut the fuck up. I knew I’d lose him forever if I kept nagging.

All I heard from my friends was, I don’t think he loved you the way you loved him. He just can’t face the guilt; it would destroy him. Let him go, Gabs. I realized he is not the salt of the earth, and I was blind.

We accept the love we think we deserve. If I misunderstand my soul, I will pick partners that will misunderstand who I am. Trust is not about another person. If I do not believe that I am worthy of love, I will not recognize it when it’s in front of me. Before him, there was Saige, a cheater and a sociopath who took everything that made me happy. Before Saige there was Hunter and Dominic and Cody and Chad and Evan and Noah and Miguel and other Noah and Anthony and so on…They were all the same. I realized I gave myself to one after another to avoid being alone. I had to stop searching for my worth in men who saw me as a body. I had to stop believing that I could be completed by men who don’t even understand that I am a person with feelings and a heart. The most disappointing part of this is knowing that I couldn’t heal him, but I understand now that I was supposed to heal myself. I am whole. I am divine. I am seen by myself and I am nurtured by myself.