An apprentice at relationships

 

Google defines relationships as "how two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected "essentially, connection. The term isn't a stand-alone but rather has connotations with versatile dynamics: familial, platonic, professional, romantic and even as a part of acquaintances. I see it as evolutionary terminology.

Lately, my life has evolved from deemed girlhood to womanhood in months, which has nothing to do with my being or identity biology. But simply as one cocoon out of a said mental age. Age is devoid of the construct we apply to it. With that comes traversing newer dynamics, which more frivolously and frequently becomes the act of hunting for a connection, a bond of companionship that isn't by blood or friendship. The presidency of wanting love outside of that cocoon of relationships we already know starts when the acknowledgement of love being a dominant emotion seeps in and grows stronger over one's understanding of needs and desires. I started my apprenticeship at this a year ago. 

You always start off as an apprentice in relationships. Just as one first learns the skill of the art to picking up the skill of using a tattoo machine to that being an apprentice at a studio to grow and be better at it. All of that, which is simply to the point, isn't just it. There's the understanding of skin, pressure, ink, needles, healing, and so much more. It is awfully similar to how romantic relationships ought to function to sustain. The amount of work and care you put in needs to be consistent and constant, or things just won't work out. This is a eulogy to my recent romantic endeavour. I wasn't the one to end it, but I'm glad it ended nonetheless. 

I took a dive in and put my all into my ex-partner after being brutally hurt at my previous situation-ships simply because they gave me a little less than the bare minimum. I understand the foolishness of the act, but it happened, and I've learned better from it. I put them on a pedestal and invited them over to see the bits of me that are sacred to my being; make note this is not intended in a sexual sense. I value my ability to draw out derivatives and indulge someone in the interests that I've developed for and by multiple reasons, be it my desire to constantly unlearn constructs and understand the need for parallels with cognizance as, sometimes I find that you need it to sustain life's battering. Letting them in was a mistake, yet I don't happen to regret it.

I'm not much into spiritualism or seeking guidance through religiosity. It's elemental; I derive what is right in front of me, and more often than not, these are raw wounds let out to bleed and dry up in their own time. I've been wounded over the months by being gaslit, manipulated, blamed and cheated on by my ex-partner with the pathetic excuse of how I traversed my life and the choices I made to sustain my life didn't align with what they wanted me to do so, and hence they woke up one day and decided they loved me no more and went out on a limb to tell one of my dearest friends that they loved her. In a matter of an hour after the separation. 

I was heartbroken after the separation and, in fact, did blame myself, not because I believed I was wrong, but because they were so good at convincing me that the demise of the relationship we had was entirely my fault as I was reacting like a child when I've been nothing but an adult all my life despite the aspect of ageing. I've taken responsibility and accountability for things beyond capacity. All I did in the relationship was give and give until I was spent, empty and drained, where I had nothing to pour into myself to keep me grounded.

They had their ways of ridding me of my entire circle of people by finding faults in them, and I inevitably had only them to lean on. When that did take place, I was constantly neglected and abandoned by them. At every juncture of my life, I've not banked on my family, which is supposed to be my immediate support system for times when I really needed it and was essential for me to be grounded and to stay. I've learned to do just by myself through all the mess, and the relationship broke me in ways I've constantly been broken but with grandeur and pseudo-love. 

However, I know breaking, being broken by relationships such as this, will be constant and as much as it is a pessimistic approach. It is the only approach that is and will be to enable learning. How else will you get a periodic check to immensely pour into only yourself until the next endeavour to see if you pour into yourself the exact amount you did when you were the lone wolf? I am hurt, saddened and in pain by what happened, and it may take ages before I give out love like I have infinite of it within me. I am not deterred, though. I will love again, but it is not a tale for now, and it will be when I willingly choose to love every day and at the cost of nothing detrimental to my being and ability to pour into myself. It isn't a selfish approach. Until then, I am enriching the person I am and will be at every juncture. 

Thanks to the Panther and its' ways, I now know the Raven soars, and the Panther runs. I hope the run was worth it. 

With endearment, once your Raven is now her own.