Chestnut tree (field notes on love and loss)

‘Sometimes being afraid is the only thing you can do’

Withdrawal

“You’ve probably heard the saying ‘love is like a drug.’ There’s more truth in that than you might think. A broken heart shows many of the same patterns in the brain as drug withdrawal. You go through similar phases.” The psychologist on the other side of the table points at the timeline she’s scribbled on the paper between us. All the pain, helplessness, and confusion I feel, reduced to a few simple lines. Grief packed neatly into a graph.

“Denial, bargaining, despair—even physical pain. You have to go through each phase before you come out the other side. That takes an average of about three months.”

I stare at her. Three months. She must be joking. I ask her how I can fast-forward, skip ahead to the part where this is all a pathetic memory. She explains that I need to start sleeping and eating again. She has a point, since I’ve already lost six kilos.

What I didn’t know back then was that I should have asked this question instead: will I be a recovering addict after this? Is something broken now that can never be repaired? Will love and pain be forever intertwined?

Chestnut Tree

On FaceTime with a friend. I tell her about my doubts and fears now that I’m dating someone again. She says, “I read something so beautiful in a book recently. It was about chestnuts. When they fall to the ground, they just are. They don’t think about needing to become a chestnut tree, they are simply a chestnut. And yet, they become a chestnut tree anyway.”

I think about it. “But that’s because they can only become one thing. We can become endlessly many trees. How do you know which one to choose?”

My friend laughs at me. “That’s true. But they’re still all trees—and all trees are good and beautiful.”

Words

“I never want to hurt you,” he says, after he’s hurt me.

Diary Scribbles 2019–2021

As long as I’m writing, I don’t really feel the things. On the page, they’re part of the story—not part of me.

No one tells you that falling in love is just as exhausting as it is fun. I could not stop if I wanted to, but I’m tired, sometimes. And I miss myself.

Yesterday, a feeling of perfect happiness washed over me. One of those moments when everything aligns—or at least I forgot that some things didn’t. I was reading a book in his arms while he watched a football match, and as my eyes slowly closed, I thought: this is what people mean.

You cannot find love without also risking pain. And I don’t know if I’m ready for that right now. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

I told myself I wouldn’t write only about my love life this year. I lasted exactly one week.

Lonely

“When I’m alone I sometimes feel lonely, but with him I sometimes feel even lonelier,” says a friend. “Wouldn’t it be better to be alone then?”

I tell her to be alone, always choose to be alone—while I’m still holding on to something so tightly, it blooms blue bruises.

Regret

“I want to apologize for how I behaved during the last year of our relationship,” an ex tells me, stirring his cocktail. “I should’ve done better, and I regret it.”

I’m surprised by how little his words affect me. After all that sadness, doubt, and endless fighting, finally being right feels hollow.

The silence that follows stretches on, uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry too,” I eventually say.

He doesn’t know that I’m not saying it to him.

Voice Message

“Sometimes you don’t need to have the answer. I know you really want to have it, and that you want to be sure you won’t feel pain. But I also know that if you act out of fear of being hurt, you’ll keep living in fear. Sometimes, being afraid is the only thing you can do—and at the same time, trust that you’ll eventually know what’s right.”

I listen to the message on the floor of my bathroom, as the tears from my mental breakdown in the shower still stream down my cheeks, and I wonder why I keep throwing myself into romantic relationships when I already have friends like this.

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