It’s my half birthday today. It also marks 3 years since I broke up with my partner, L. This end of my first adult relationship catapulted Colorado. I’ve written about the transitions, shifts in spaces, new network of friends, and changes in work. But never the breakup. Today is the day.
3 years ago, I chose myself.
It took a long time to break up with L, but when I finally did, I recognized we were (and are) fundamentally different in values, goals, and lived experiences. Despite sharing nearly 5 years together.
I told L, “there’s nothing wrong with this, but you’re going to be in Milwaukee your whole life. I don’t know if this time, next year, I’ll be in… Colorado.”
July 12, 2024 marks 3 years in Colorado.
I still remember my first meal as a single person, a veggie burger, in honor of already choosing less animal products. I also remember dancing in the sprinkling spring rain, something L would never do.
The next day after my breakup, my best friend from college, S, called me: S and her partner, another S, were engaged! Excited, we shared the differences of our last couple of days, and I revealed I wanted to make changes. A new chapter.
S and S bought a house in Denver. Was Colorado calling through my best friend?
The following day, S’s fiancé called me, letting me know his school was hiring a marketer. I took the job. And a room in S and S’s new home.
Transitioning states, time zones, people, jobs, and so much more was both an exhausting and ordained proposition. I was excited and terrified by what, who, and where was ahead. But I needed to move forward and make change.
Feeling empowered means making changes, and it often starts with a break from what, who, and where is known.
For me, during those first few months in Denver, everything shifted. Moving over 1000 miles away meant a difference in jobs, relationship status, volunteer roles, network, and even streets. Yes, I knew how Colorado felt at one point in time: L and I had visited S in 2017, and I felt home that first visit to the “mile high.” But I didn’t know who and what about Colorado was calling, when I finally moved, 4 years later.
Now that Denver is really starting to feel like home, I am making changes once again. S, S, our other roommate R, and I are all modifying spaces in our shared house, such as my coffee clutch. Making our space a home is ongoing work that we do together and independently. Being empowered means being WITH myself first, making home regardless of where I am and who I am with.
Empowerment includes embracing all my contributions, contradictions, and chapters, including the ones I am scared to share (even as a fairly confident person!) and am still working toward. It means being with myself, leaving room for experimenting and NOT playing by the rules once and a while… those rules are typically by and for straight, white, cis men, anyway.
Playing nice is a tendency of people-pleasing, and I’m over that. There’s a balance between being kind and also still showing up for myself. When I broke up with L in 2021, I wasn’t mean, but I was honest. I did not yell. But I was terrified of breaking this man’s heart, and his mom’s, too, because I broke what was known.
Breaking up with what (and in this case, who and where) is known is perhaps the riskiest endeavor of empowerment. Making changes is vulnerable and scary in its inevitable aftermath.
Perhaps personal empowerment needs a reframe: Maybe I can laugh at the known by playing with potential!
Being true to myself while also fostering safety is my goal of this month on empowerment. It’s also part of my greater word for the year, experiment. This is ongoing work, of course. Life isn’t about playing the roles folks (partners, systems, whoever, whatever) force or suggest. Instead, it’s about choosing environments and folks who empower authenticity.
Feeling empowered is more than psychological, too. It’s physical and interpersonal. Digging deeper, it’s making space for change and contradiction. A question I ask myself, am I safe in sharing and belonging? I intend to create a safe space here online, on my website or other medium.
I truly believe empowerment starts within the self, and so that’s why I’m sharing this story for the first time today, 3 years later.
I’ve been called “brave” throughout my life, but I don’t want that. Even now, people offer this attribute since I am going back to school, shifting from marketing to library and information science. But what I really feel (and am) is empowered: To try. To listen myself. To take the call.
How can I keep listening to myself, this month for my experiment into really feeling, acting, and being empowered? How can I continue making spaces for others (and myself) to reveal and feel? These are questions I’ll ask this month. What about you? How will you show up for yourself?
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