The Choice Is Yours

“Hey, I have been following you for a couple months now and your posts are so relatable and I feel they’re part of my healing. I am having major relationship issues- so much so that I have therapy for it. Therapy is amazing but that doesn’t mean I’m not still struggling! I have huge abandonment issues after my dad walked out on me, my fiancé left me and just generally speaking, it feels like nothing good lasts. I fell in love with a man who couldn’t have kids after my separation with my fiancé. We have gone back and forth and I am so in love with him that I genuinely believe he is the only one I will ever love. I’m fearful by ending it once and for all, I’ll be 80 like my Nan and lived my whole life with the wrong man/men or worse alone. I love him so much but I have gone and dated other men who have been “unsure” of where we are going. This has damaged our relationship because i go and come back. Somehow he still has open arms for me always. I feel the bad guy… I feel the damage is irreparable and ultimately, he still can’t have children which I am desperate for after miscarrying twins when I was a lot younger. This man was there for me when I had cervical cancer and unwell. I just don’t know what to do anymore and have this overwhelming fear of being on my own. Especially as I haven’t got many friends to talk to on a deeper level or even family due to my mother being an alcoholic and my dad being absent. Is there any advice you could give me? Love from a very upset, hurt 27 year old! X Probably worth mentioning that I have dated other men who are no good which ultimately leads me back to him. I feel I can’t ever move on to really find love unless we part ways but this seems impossible right now x”

My Dearest Bad Biddie,

When my parents first came to the US, they had $300, two suitcases, and could string all of ten sentences together in English. All of our discretionary spending came from the dumpster behind the local Kmart – discarded toys, Christmas decorations, dishes, etc. from families who could afford to buy and throw away things they didn’t need. I still sleep with a stuffed dog toy my parents bought me from a now-defunct toy store named Zany Brainy when I was ten – I started sleeping with it because it was one of the few new toys a year they bought me. It was $9.99. Neither of them came from perfect families, and neither of them let their past dictate their future. And now that we are here, in the future, thirty-two years later, I’m so glad they said “to hell with it,” and ran towards the life they wanted, even if it wasn’t guaranteed.

You have already battled the greatest battle a human could ever face: death. Everything else is surmountable, because you get to live another day and by living another day, and another, and another after that, you get a chance to change the story you tell yourself. You are not your nan, you are not your mother, and you are not your dad. You are you, tomorrow is unwritten, and that is your power.

One day you will look back and think about how young you were at twenty-seven. That maybe, if you realized in the moment, how young you truly were, you would’ve taken more chances, started over more, made more mistakes, because you had the gift of time on your side. That day could be today, while you still have time to walk away from a man who may love you, but who you know is not right for you, or that day could be years from now, after you’ve given more of yourself away to a person or situation that no longer served you, but felt too familiar to let go. The choice is yours, and your future depends on it.

Love,
Your internet hype woman