I always thought that love was supposed to be hard; be it romantic love, friendly love, or familial love. I grew up in constant chaos. I thought that was normal. When you grow up having to constantly defend yourself, you learn how to survive on the emotional storms. The highs and lows feel normal. Conflict becomes familiar.

You become independent not because you want to, but because you have to.

I gravitated towards people who thrived in the chaos, too. It felt like home. I was desperate for love, so I thought that I was fighting for the relationships. I am an Aries, as cliché as it may be – I am passionate, fiery, and loyal. I fought for my relationships, or so I thought. There was a deep passion in the yelling and screaming. Not the kind of passion one should want for themselves, but passion, nonetheless. Each relationship burned hot and steamy in the beginning, but slowly became unbearable. Like the proverbial boiling frog, I didn’t realize how uncomfortable I had become because the temperature rose so gradually.

I kept repeating the patterns over and over and over again. Looking back, the script seemed the same: I met someone who matched my energy, I went all in right away- that Aries thing springing up again (pun intended lol) -we burned hot and heavy, then ended in a blaze of toxicity. I always felt like I had to constantly defend myself with hours and hours of cyclical conversations that ultimately led to nowhere, other than more arguments, I suppose.

Each time a relationship ended I had another one lined up to replace it. An endless sea of relationships that were all destined to end in a fiery blaze. I can’t entirely blame it on my partners, even though that is exactly what most of us do- we rationalize it to insulate ourselves from the pain. I eventually began asking myself, “If the script is always the same, why do I still read it?” That’s when the shift happened.

Love shouldn’t be hard.

There was no instant moment of clarity like in the movies. No clouds parting to reveal perfect sunshine. Just a slow, gradual realization: I made these choices, and I had to be the one to change. I started spending more time on self-reflection: What do I want my life to look like? Do I want to live in chaos, forever defending myself for taking up space or do I want to grow and become something I can be proud of?

Once I realized I was the one holding the pen, I started asking what I wanted the next chapter to look like.

What do I want my life to look like? Not tomorrow, or next week, but five years from now. Ten years from now.

For the first time, I started to map out a future that wasn’t based on survival. I created goals, made plans, and started taking small steps towards the life that I wanted instead of reacting to the life happening around me. These changes didn’t happen overnight. Truthfully, many of them are still unfolding. But for the first time in my life, I was moving forward with intention.

For so long, I thought that strength came from enduring. These days, I think it looks more like choosing peace over chaos. It looks like choosing to leave behind that which no longer serves me without guilt. It looks like creating a life that doesn’t require survival. I no longer ask why others hurt me. Now I ask why I kept accepting the pain.

Now I am ready to write a different ending.

-Mae Rowan

New here? Start with:

• Somewhere Between Survival and Becoming
• The Woods Were Always Waiting For Me