exercising my right to crash out
i might be too aware for my own good
As I close out the year 25 and get closer to 26, I’ve been reflecting on how my upbringing and the choices I’ve made throughout my life set up the way my brain works today. I always joke that not receiving substantial male attention during my formative years where things are “supposed” to happen altered my brain chemistry and I want to break that down for the class.
Let’s start the story around high school where once it became clear male attention didn’t come to me as easily as it did for my peers I had no choice but to focus on other things. This is not to say that I felt that I was above romance and I cracked the code, in fact, I thought about it often and at the time I blamed myself for what I lacked, but on a day-to-day I had to keep things moving. I got good grades, got into a good college and although I started drinking my freshman year (sorry mom) the same could be said of college. I did all the “right things” generally speaking and I’m glad that I did because all of those choices led me to be where I am today, but I’m now closer to 30 than 20 and I look back and wonder about the paths I didn’t take.
What would be different if I had experienced love as a teenager or even in my early twenties? Who would I be if I had experienced a heartbreak? What if I actually got played vs. always figuring it out in enough time to leave unscarred? What if the one thing I’ve consistently thought about for 10+ years finally happened? Am I even capable of “just having fun” the way that I say I want to? Or is my frontal lobe too developed to overlook certain things?
These questions sound crazy and most people would argue that I dodged a bullet but what people don’t understand is that feeling nothing is not better than feeling something—both good and bad. They say that it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all and I don’t care if I sound stupid or dramatic for saying that I agree. This issue is a bit messy, a bit candid, and it’s lowkey a bit of a crashout within itself but it’s also where I’m at.
AM I GROWING IN THEORY VS. IN PRACTICE?
My whole life I’ve been a sponge to my friend’s experiences, learning right from wrong and seeing them make mistakes so that I don’t have to and at times it feels like I have been granted the answer key. You can’t trick me because I know the signs and I recognize your game. At times it can feel like some of my “growth” in terms of relationships is a culmination of other people’s experiences vs. what I’ve endured firsthand which makes the takeaways a bit hollow and leaves me unsure if I actually learned anything. It’s all fun and games being the “strict friend” until I pause and acknowledge this way of thinking is a defense mechanism I’ve held on to that developed because of what I never experienced years ago. By intellectualizing heterosexual relationships I could think of it as a puzzle and rationalize that sure nothing’s happened to me because I understand the bigger picture. I’m even starting to wonder do I TRULY understand any of it…or is it even something that can be universally understood? What I am starting to realize is that while romantic love is not logical, why I haven’t experienced it isn’t logical either. And that sucks.
HAVE I BECOME AN OBSTACLE IN MY OWN PATH?
This intellectualization also creates a standard for myself that is unrealistic and doesn’t even align with my personality in all other aspects of life. What if I want to go on silly dates with random men or sneak off to someone’s house I’m not supposed to be at? Don’t I have the right to just try things out the way that everyone else gets to? I know that I can but in my head I’m always thinking 10 steps ahead or thinking about how I’m almost 30 (no I’m not) and I’m too old to be doing certain things. I attribute part of this way of thinking to the fact that deep deep down inside of me I’m coming to grips with what can never be.
I’m spontaneous in most realms of life but when it comes to men it feels like I’m too smart to make mistakes or it’s too late to fall for certain things. But what happens when someone does come into my life at the ripe age of 26, 27, 28, 29, 30…who knows and I have no frame of reference for how to do this thing. Coaching and playing are two totally different things and I fear the 25+ years of professional experience are going to go out the window the second the whistle blows. Do I have an anxious or secure attachment style? Will I want to speak to this person daily or will here and there suffice? What even is my love language in practice? I fear that I have to work through the pain to allow myself to feel and experience love vs. predict and avoid it because it’s all so unfamiliar.
WHAT DOES “CRASHING OUT” AT 25 LOOK LIKE?
When I started writing this I typed out the bulk of it, but left this section blank. I wanted to think about it more but little did I know that I’d actually feel all of this first-hand only a few days later. I jokingly have a 48-hour rule when it comes to crashing out where I take the first 24 hours to be my most anxious and sad self (this period is full of checking my phone for notifications, rationalizing the behavior, wondering what I did…you know the vibe), I allot the next 24 to be a bit calmer but still have a morsel of hope that actually what I think is happening isn’t happening. Then after that, I have to move on. This process works if my main measurement is efficiency and getting back to my normal self as soon as possible, but it doesn’t really work if I want to feel anything. I’m currently “crashing out” over a ghosting and I’m trying to be a bit more present in the storm. I’m admitting that I’m feeling a pretty shitty feeling that compiles on itself and gets worse with every blow. I’m also admitting that it’s not that I’m a particularly private person, I just don’t let myself get excited or talk about things in this sector of life because it all ends and it’s more embarrassing to have to circle back and let everyone know that things have flopped again vs. not tell anyone at all. I can be at peace with my own shortcomings and failures but to share it with the town square? that’s where you lose me. It’s taking a nap in the middle of the day because sleeping is better than my racing mind. It’s thinking every text your phone gets is the one that finally clears everything up and explains that someone was having a busy day…or two days…or week…now it’s a month (classic am I right?). And maybe the culmination is writing this all down in your Substack, pressing send, and just letting that be.
WHAT DO I DO NOW?
Someone tweeted this image and I saved it and later the same day someone quoted like “this is so corny y’all need to grow up” but I don’t care, I like it. It is December (lucky me that I found this right now) and I am not 17 anymore nor have I been for a going on 9 years. I think the final line can be interpreted two ways: 1) reminding yourself that you’re not 17, you’re 25 and there’s a wide gap of lessons and moments that make you different from who you were then or 2) you’re not 17 but that 17 year old is still within you regardless. I teeter between the two because there’s so much I’m thankful for while the me of the past still wonders about what never was and yearns for it. For now, I’ll stay right there in the middle and I’m hoping that someday my younger self meets me there.
from me to you,
Ianthe