I want to be alike a pomegranate

Unassuming to the plain eye, overlooked in most instances. How good could it possibly be? Someone takes on the challenge, they cut into it. Dozens of pockets that need to be carefully dissected, one by one. Hundreds of red juicy seeds fall. It takes a while to fully get through a whole pomegranate, to take all the seeds out. It takes patience and attentiveness. It takes a careful touch. If you rush, you'll end up with a blood bath of red juice splattered everywhere. You might crush some of the precious seeds. It takes someone special to work through the intricacies of the pomegranate.

Of course you can buy it pre-peeled at the store too. But it's not the same. You pay more for way less. Getting to just eat it right away is not nearly as satisfying as when you spend too much time trying to peel it all apart. When your red-stained fingers can finally enjoy the fruit of their labour.

I want to be alike a pomegranate. I want to just sit there quietly waiting for my turn and I want to know that when the right person comes along and picks me up, that person will just take their time with me. He'll just dive into the intricacies of who I am with patience, desire and care. He'll stick his fingers into the most obscure parts of my brain and unravel the story of me piece by piece, with love, understanding and a commitment to enjoying every part of me.

I've been taking a break from dating. Ever since the last romantic disaster where I yet again lost myself in the good and it yet again ended prematurely, I have said to myself that my heart can't keep on doing this. I've been taking my time with the healing process. I still think about that daily (okay maybe several times a day). I guess that's the hardest part about not going back to dating. You keep replaying the past because you are not allowing someone else to distract you in the present moment. It's both good and bad. Most days I am tempted to send a text that asks for some sort of reconciliation. I know I shouldn't and I won't break that boundary but I still think about it.

I signed up for dancing classes last week and that's been a neat little winter hobby for me to take on. I have been enjoying it quite a lot. I don't have a single dancing bone in my body and I look like a wall a lot of the time but I figured that it's definitely something to get me out of my comfort zone and trying something I otherwise would never think of trying. It is quite the workout too which I did not expect.

The last month has been quiet. I have been peeling away at my own layers of discontent and trying to analyze what I am unhappy with and what I need to work on. I've been trying to re-acquaint myself with myself. Look within, work on my diet, my mental health, my spiritual well-being. Who am I when I am by myself and what kind of person am I showing up as to those around me, be it platonic or romantic?

The purchase of my new car got me closer to myself than I have been in years. When I bought the Jetta in 2020, I was just starting out in Toronto. Broke, fresh out of school and barely making ends meet. I love the Jetta to this day but I knew that I was itching for more. A few months ago I had met someone who drove a realllllllllly sexy Benz. After sitting in his car a few times, I could feel the fire burning under me. It was like it re-awoke a part of me I had kept in the dark for the last few years. I will say that the last few years have indeed been more travel centric, but this was like a sign. Go get that car you really want Cez. And so I did and boy am I glad I did.

I think that while this is a rather superficial example, it was also a sign to me that I need to elevate in all areas of my life. Elevate in the way I date, in the way I carry myself, in the way I treat people and they treat me. No more scraps, no more second and third chances, no more begging to be seen or cared for. I aim to transcend into more. Bigger, better, more. I have often said that I have a desire to never plateau, but I never took that to heart on a more personal level. I plateau every time I accept less than I deserve. I plateau every time I ask to be treated in a particular way when that person has 0 desire to treat me that way to begin with. The words plateau and settling are interchangeable in this context.

And so, I no longer want that and want to be alike a pomegranate going forward. No one reaches for a pomegranate unless they are willing to put in the work to peel it and to get all the seeds out. They're a hard fruit to get to enjoy but those who are willing to put in the work, know damn well that those seeds are so worth it.

As always, thanks for coming to my Cez talk xo.

Being a lover girl sucks

Have you ever seen those memes late in the year that go something like "2025 is gonna be my year!!" and then right below that is a picture of a defeated person with explosions happening everywhere in the background and the caption "me in October". That is me right now.

I took a lot of hits this year. Solid hits that would have sent even the most mentally stable person into a spiral. Genuinely, I have no idea how I made it to October without fully breaking down. I will give myself a pat on the back for that one. I will say that vices like drinking and smoking ciggies on the regular have helped. I have some of the greatest friends on earth who have listened to me talk about situations backwards and forwards and sideways. I metaphorically f*cked every thought process, every situation, every conversation that could have gone differently had I said something other than what I actually said in the moment.

I am tired.

Not just tired, I am mentally and emotionally drained. I am done. I don't want to do this anymore.

I write this more so because I just need to beat a dead horse just once more before I let it go, so here goes nothing.

The last few years since my last long term relationship ended, have been a mumbo jumbo of crap I have put up with, in my search for a long lasting (maybe forever) type of connection. I have not found that as of yet. This year was probably the worst for that. I tried to distance myself from expectations and let connections flow as they will. I broke my own heart over and over and over again. The thing is, I didn't even look for any of these connections per se. Yeah, I had dating apps and I was somewhat active on them, but I genuinely did not actively pursue anyone. Everything that happened literally just fell into my lap. It's not like I was all like "I need to find a man, I hate being single" type shit. If anything, whenever I was on my own, I was much happier so you can only imagine I didn't really want to ruin my peace.

In reality, I know who I am. I am so much of a lover girl that any connection that feels less than a romantic comedy, is not for me. In my search for forever, I found a lot of right now. I found the forehead kisses without a promise of tomorrow, I found the hand-holding that is meant to mean more but just doesn't. I can't keep doing this to my heart anymore.

A couple of weeks ago I met someone that instantaneously felt like he could be forever. It was quite strange how comfortable I felt being myself from the absolute get-go. In two weeks, we covered six months worth of conversation. From silly, to heartbreakingly deep, we were talking every single day without so much as running out of a single thing to say. He felt like the male version of me. With the same sort of overthinking patterns, soft heart, and a slight darkness behind his eyes built over time with every disappointing thing that happened to him. All the while, he was trying his best to remain light and positive. It was easy opening up to him because I felt like he could just get it. I wanted to just keep this gorgeous man in my arms all the time and make sure no one could ever hurt him.

In reality, that doesn't happen often anymore. Dating has not been fun or fulfilling in any way. Funnily enough, I was talking to my friend about this last night. We were watching "How to lose a guy in 10 days" (how fitting of a foreshadowing). She, (a happily taken woman in a relationship for the last few years), mentioned how a long term relationship isn't as fun and exciting as the movies romanticize it to be. She talked about how sweet they looked in those 10 days, and how she misses that sort of lustful romance that in time, looks different when a relationship becomes the day-to-day. I wanted to understand what that's like but I couldn't be further away from the sentiment. I don't know any other type of relationship anymore other than those lustful 10 days. The excitement of someone new, the giggles and dates, and the eventual just as quick incineration of the connection. It goes up in flames, gets extinguished and when the dust settles, it's time to move on. I don't even have the time to get real feelings for anyone cause it falls apart quicker than my heart has the opportunity to really get comfortable with anyone. While I have had the opportunity to meet great guys along the way and had great laughs and fun, the impermanence of these lustful and temporary connections are starting to wear me down.

How do you explain that to someone? That your attempts at dating have been such a tragic dumpster fire? That you can walk into a connection thinking it has potential but in reality you are dealing with someone who is emotionally unavailable and they string you along for just enough until the connection eventually dies down to the point you have to walk away to put yourself out of further misery? How do you explain to someone that you might have the purest intentions and still be the person who has to end things because your heart deserves better? How? How? How?

I have a hard time accepting the end of this one because if he's anything like me, well, this probably meant something to him too. That said, I find myself at a crossroads. On one end, I have always been the kind of person to fight for what I want and try over and over again until it eventually works in my favour. On the other hand, he walked away and he could have meant it. I might not be the person he desires, and perhaps I need to come to terms with that.

But maybe, I just need to leave it up to fate. He might miss me too and read these very words (I have my fingers crossed on this being the case). And if he does, well... hey!

I will say this though - I can't do this to myself anymore. So if it's not him, well, I am taking a hiatus from men and taking a break. I don't intend on redownloading any apps, I don't intend on entertaining anyone anymore and I quite frankly cannot even fathom doing so for a long while. So if you're reading this and still need time, rest assured, I do too and I will not be "moving on to the next".

This ending was a hard hit for me because for once, I wasn't mistreated or not appreciated. I was baking cookies with a guy who suggested that we do that. I never had that before. And no, this isn't me romanticizing the idea of baking cookies with a man. I simply felt seen.

The new iphone update sends your deleted text threads to a recently deleted folder. I always delete the thread when something ends cause I am tempted to re-read everything, think about where it all went wrong and send myself into a deeper spiral than I was already in. I deleted that thread but I can't bring myself to delete it from the recently deleted folder just yet. 3,860 messages. Ouch.

And so, I will sit my ass down and work on me in the meantime. I will look inward and not let the lover girl in me die on account of all that has happened to me this year. I will simply build her back up and maybe, just maybe, one day someone will love her in the same way she wants to pour love into someone.

As always, thanks for coming to my Cez talk xo.

Re-write the present

I am miserable somewhere deep on the inside. My outer core bleeds rainbows and butterflies though. A couple of weeks ago my boss sent me a LinkedIn screenshot. He has a knack for finding those influential, self-development quotes or advice posts. I really don't know how he finds so many of those. He shares them with me and often, this usually leads to some bigger discussion about what I intend to do with my life and where I am heading. Half the time, those discussions make me cry. As much as I am not much of a crier, lately, the prospect of the future has been nothing but a daunting topic to me.

I wrote that first paragraph just over a month ago and it's been sitting in my drafts ever since, with the title "Misery loves company". I guess that a lot can change in a month. The last month has been weird at best. I am beginning to learn that I am far from nonchalant. In fact, I am stupidly chalant. I used to think that this was actually a manifestation of my general demeanour of self-proclaimed "hopeless romanticism", but, I seem to manifest that more so in a - skip through everything really fast until I feel comfortable and secure with a person or in a particular place in my life.

Let me break that down a little. For whatever reason, once I fixate on a goal, I just want to reach it. I don't want to stop and smell the roses, I don't want to try to walk the less traveled path, I don't want to entertain the idea of an alternative. I just want the fastest possible way to reach that goal. Be it a relationship, a professional goal, you name it. The concept of slow burn only sounds appealing in the books I read but not in my own life.

That said, this isn't a conscious thing I do when I'm in the moment. In reality, I think that the concept of letting something run its course and seeing where the path takes me, sounds quite beautiful. So why do I try so hard to control the narrative?

My boss would probably say that it has something to do with my childhood and some sort of anxious attachment style. We've been having a lot of talks of that nature in relation to leadership lately. Apparently letting people be exactly who they are and not trying to control the way they act and react is a learned skill. Taking a step back requires discipline and a different type of control. A control that allows you to blindly believe that things will just fall into place as they are supposed to - even if the outcome is not what you'd actually want. To me, that screams failure, even if I do understand that you really can't always control everything.

I'm used to fire, urgency, hunger. I'm used to deadlines, staying up all night talking because we just can't get enough of each other. I am not used to slow. I am not used to controlled. I am not used to letting someone take lead when I know how to do it myself. Perhaps this is my flaw and I need someone to ground me - I mean this both professionally and romantically.

I've always been a black cat. I have very few of the golden retriever qualities - perhaps just the loyalty. It's not a bad thing to be either - at least I don't think so. I'd like to think that I am surrounded by a lot of golden retrievers and that helps me stay grounded, not run away or get scared or anxious as much as I perhaps would if I were to be on my own. Patience does not run long with me. I don't like uncertainty and I distance myself from anything that even has the potential to hurt me in the near future.

I don't know how to be different and unlearning these (somewhat toxic) tendencies has proven itself to be quite the task. I am trying though. I am trying to "chill out". I am trying to stop putting too much thought or heart into anything too soon. I am trying to accept that not everything always works out and the road to coming to that conclusion does not have to be grim. I can enjoy the process without thinking about what's next. In reality, all of this sounds painful to the formulation of my brain, but, I am trying.

If you've ever found yourself in this place, I hope you didn't feel alone. If you are now in this place, I want you to know that you are not alone. It's true that our minds can be the most beautiful and devastating thing to happen to us and although nothing is wrong per se on the surface, the things that are wrong in our minds have just as much power over our bodies as the ones we can physically see and touch.

As always, thanks for coming to my Cez talk xo.