Subconsciously attached

I never realized how much I was still holding on — even after a connection had technically ended.

A few days ago, I saw something that hurt my feelings. Not because it was cruel or unexpected, but because it forced me to confront something I hadn’t fully admitted to myself yet: I have been keeping the door open. Just slightly. Quietly. Mostly without realizing.

The connection itself didn’t end badly. There was no betrayal, no explosion, no clear villain. It ended in that particularly confusing way - a person that felt like the right person, wrong time. The kind of ending that doesn’t feel like an ending at all, but more like an unfinished sentence.

And because there was no fault or dramatic closure, I told myself I was being mature by staying connected. Remaining friendly. Keeping them on Instagram. Not burning bridges.

At least, that’s what I said out loud.

When I really sat with the disappointment I felt after seeing them move on, I realized something more uncomfortable: I wasn’t keeping the bridge intact for neutrality or future usefulness. I was keeping it intact because a part of me believed that this ongoing proximity - the follows, the story views, the occasional check-in, meant reconciliation was still possible.

That maybe if the timing shifted, maybe if I posted the right thing or maybe if they missed me just enough.

Maybe one day they’d walk back through that barely cracked door.

And once I noticed that, I couldn’t unsee it.

Because it wasn’t just them.

It was a pattern.

There were other connections over the years that ended gently, prematurely, without a clean break. People I told myself I was “over,” yet never fully released. People whose posts about moving on stung - not enough to make me cut ties, but enough to quietly hurt. Enough to remind me that I was still watching from the sidelines, hoping for an alternate ending.

What I hadn’t realized was that by leaving the door cracked open, I was allowing them to move on freely — while I stayed tethered to potential.

I was doing all the “right” things on paper. Dating. Meeting new people. Exploring new connections. Living my life.

But somewhere in the background, there was always that tiny glimmer of hope. The belief that one Instagram story might be enough to pull them back into my orbit. That hope was subtle - but it was powerful enough to slow my healing.

Because you can’t fully move forward while secretly negotiating with the past.

This isn’t about bitterness or resentment. It’s not about shame. It’s about noticing the quiet ways attachment survives long after logic says it shouldn’t. The ways we tell ourselves we’re being open-minded, when in reality, we’re afraid of fully closing the door. The way that I did time and time again.

And maybe closure isn’t always a conversation.

Maybe sometimes it’s an action.

Maybe sometimes it’s choosing yourself over potential.

I think healing really begins when you stop waiting for someone to return - and start giving yourself permission to leave.

And maybe, just maybe, true healing starts with hitting that unfollow button.

3 a.m. and I must be lonely

Last night I woke up at 3 a.m. to use the bathroom. Nothing unusual - I wake up in the middle of the night more often than I’d like these days. I slipped back into bed with the hope that I’d fall asleep immediately, but instead, the thoughts rushed in uninvited, the way they tend to at that hour.

I remembered how I once told you that one day I wanted to share a story with you. A synchronicity. A ridiculous, almost cinematic little moment that made too much sense at the time. I told you I’d only share it with you if we made it. And I had you write it down so I wouldn’t forget to tell you - in the event that we did.

But we never did.

And I never told you the story.

For reasons I can’t fully explain, that realization hit me harder at 3 a.m. than it ever would at any other time of day. Not because what we had was some grand, sweeping love story - it wasn’t that, and it never had the time to become that. But there was something there, something real enough that I was curious to see where it could go.

Something that felt like it deserved more time than it got.

Most days I don’t dwell on it. My life is full. I stay busy, picked up new hobbies, and I don’t walk around haunted. But 3 a.m. has its own gravitational pull. It doesn’t care about perspective or logic or the fact that I’ve mostly put this behind me. It arrives when I’m too tired to redirect my thoughts and too awake to ignore them.

It reminded me of that Matchbox Twenty lyric - It’s 3 a.m. and I must be lonely.

But it’s not really loneliness. It’s just the quiet. The openness. The place where all the distractions fall away and something unfinished has room to echo.

Writing is how I sort through that. Not to romanticize it into something bigger than it was, but because it mattered enough to linger. There’s a specific ache to something that almost was - not heartbreak, not devastation, just a soft, persistent wondering.

I can’t stop a 3 a.m. thought because it’s the most honest hour of my day.

I can’t stop a 3 a.m. thought because I’m lying there in the dark with nothing but the truth of what resurfaces.

I can’t stop a 3 a.m. thought because it’s the most poetic hour of my life and also the most heartbreaking.

I can’t stop a 3 a.m. thought because it’s too intimate, too vulnerable, and I’m too tired to build walls against it.

I can’t stop a 3 a.m. thought because at that hour, there’s nothing left to distract myself with.

So here I was - wide awake over a story I meant to tell someone I barely got the chance to know.

And maybe that’s exactly why it lingers -

Not because it was everything, but because it never had enough time to become anything at all.

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.