returning to nyc after a few weeks in colombia; a conversation with my therapist that literally changed my life; post-breakup growth and healing; and the many things I’m thinking about
This is the third and final part of a series of recent real-life stories.You can read part 1 & part 2 here.
The dusty dirt track that runs to the beach passes three enormous wild mango trees. I carefully crawl under the wire fence and inspect the floor carpeted by discarded mango leaves for an intact one. I find two: fallen, ripe and unbruised, pick them up and pretzel myself back onto the path. When I reach the water’s edge, I kneel into it, washing the riper of the two, peeling the skin away from the flesh with my fingers, letting the golden juice run down my arms and drip off into the sea. I bite into the juicy flesh like a starved savage until all that’s left is a large stone. I love it when my wild, feral island girl personality emerges.
Every day since my arrival, I make this daily pilgrimage. To immerse myself in the salty water. To walk along the sand barefoot with the sea lapping at my feet. To discharge the chaos of my emotional world from the past month.
I’m alone and in Colombia.
For the first 10 days, I am sick af in a hotel room. Sick in the body with a fever and a cold. Sick in the heart from a breakup. Sick in the mind from the combination of both. My period comes too, and I can’t think of a more lethal combination. Desperate to heal, I move myself deeper and deeper into the jungle to be immersed by nature until I end up in a tiny one-street village surrounded by tropical plants on the edge of the Caribbean.
Every day after work,1 I walk to a quiet part of the beach, sheltered by mangroves and lie down on a sarong I’d bought in the village, watching the waves, letting their rhythm rock my nervous system back to homeostasis. If the water is calm enough, I find a shallow spot to crouch in and sit in the cool, salty sea until the waves become too much. The tides are dangerous here, and no one swims in these waters.
Every day, I become stronger. Every day, I feel a little more capable. The world starts to regain its colour after weeks of seeing in sepia. I stop to admire flowers, seashells and tiny crabs that are trying to make their home next to me. My capacity to make any kind of meaningful decisions about my next steps remains offline, and the urgency to make them has faded.
Every afternoon, thunderstorms roll through the Sierra Nevada mountains behind me.
My appetite returns, and I eat papaya and scrambled eggs with tomato and onions and thickly buttered arepas for breakfast with gusto. I enjoy coffee black for the first time in my life because that’s how they have it here. I drink fresh coconuts and ask them to cut them open so I can scoop out the young, jellylike flesh. I try limonadas of all sorts, resting with my two favourites, sandía (watermelon) and coco (coconut).
Every day, my tan grows a little deeper.
A dark moon sets in Cancer and a new moon rises in Leo, and I, too, begin to rise. But not without the lessons of this dark time.
I think a lot about a lot of things. (Addressed in depth below.)
I think about the state of the world and its wars and suffering, and politics. I think about victim mentality and how we can choose our thoughts and beliefs to rearrange our reality. I think about how the world has flattened in recent years. I think about travel and its place in my life. I think about the intentional home life and career I want to participate in. I think about how micro experiences are also always happening in the macro. I think about my most recent relationship and romantic relationships in general. I think about the burning hot shame I feel about not having seen the signs sooner.
I am deeply embarrassed that I let myself get involved with this man. I feel like I should have somehow known.
I speak to my therapist about it, and she laughs at me.
“You feel shame?! For what? Trusting your partner? Being in love and wanting a beautiful story? Matching your actions with your words? The only person who holds ANY shame in this scenario is him. A lot of men are avoidant, emotionally unavailable, immature and generally inconsiderate. They are not worthy partners, and they waste women’s time. That’s not a reflection of you. It’s all on them. Stop taking it personally. So what, you encountered only one of them? You’re lucky! He’s so boring. Now, let’s move on!”
Haha. I adore her brutal honesty. She’s right! So I do. I move on.
Now that I’m feeling stronger, she is tougher with me. She’s in her late 60s and no longer sees clients, but having worked with her on and off for seven years, she is the only person who truly knows all the stories I have lived and learned from. She’s helped me move past, through and on from so many life moments that felt like the end to me. We all need people like this in our lives.
And just like that, I’m over it and back in NYC.
I land in NYC with the sunrise. It’s a late July summer morning, and the heat is already starting to rise. Relief and joy flood my body. I don’t know what this feeling is, but I’m so happy to be back. I’ve discovered a trick to avoid the subway into the city from JFK airport and get a driver to Grand Central Station for the price of two coffees.
My therapist introduces me to the work of therapist Terry Real. I find a talk where he says, “Black-and-white thinking is a sign you’re in your adapted child; mature adults don’t categorise things in binary terms, but children do.” Something inside me shifts.
It speaks directly to me. That oversimplified lens we slip into under stress: good/bad, right/wrong, always/never isn’t clarity, it’s contraction. A survival strategy.
Vienda Maria 