A Short Introduction To My Reflective Essay & The Push and Pull of Moving Forward

Last week, I started writing a series of reflective essays titled “Coming to Terms with It All...” These essays are deeply personal, focusing on situations I’ve been grappling with, some for years, others I hadn’t even realized were unresolved until now.

The idea behind them is simple but not easy: to confront the things I’ve avoided dealing with. Whether it was fear, denial, or simply not knowing how to process them, I kept these issues locked away. Writing these essays has been my way of pouring out everything, my heart, my soul, and all the emotions I’ve been carrying.

They aren’t meant to provide answers or tie things up neatly. Instead, they’re a way for me to unload what’s been swirling in my mind. By putting those thoughts and feelings onto paper, I can begin to see them more clearly, even if I’m not yet sure what to do with them.

These reflective essays were written before this post, and this moment feels like the next step. Writing them was a form of therapy, an honest conversation with myself about love, family, work, exercise, stress, and my mental health. They reflect the struggles I’ve faced with Aleks, the betrayals I’ve endured, and the weight of expectations I’ve placed on myself. They touch on the pain of not feeling enough, the anger and sadness I’m learning to navigate, and the small, hesitant steps I’m taking to heal.

This is just the beginning of a journey I don’t fully understand yet. But for the first time in a long time, I’m letting myself feel, reflect, and slowly, cautiously move forward.

-

The last few days have been tough. They’ve been the kind of days where realisations hit you like a wave you didn’t see coming, knocking you off balance. I’ve been carrying a lot on my shoulders, things I’ve avoided fully confronting until now. Last weekend, for the first time, I did a mental inventory of it all, and the weight of everything caught me by surprise, I never knew how much I was dealing with at once, and all on my own. I broke down in tears, asking myself questions I wasn’t sure I was ready to answer.

“Why am I like this? Why can’t I be forgiven?”

And then, almost without thinking, I answered myself, out loud. “I don’t deserve to be forgiven. I don’t want to be forgiven. And, I’m not ready to be forgiven.”

It was a startling moment of clarity, and it hurt to admit it out loud. There’s a part of me that truly believes I should be punished, that moving forward somehow means betraying the pain I’m carrying, betraying the relationship I was in. But at the same time, there’s another part of me, small but growing, that wants to start living again, not just surviving. 

I just don’t know what that looks like without Aleks.

It’s hard to imagine a life without her. Even now, I still love her. I’ve tried to let go, to accept that she doesn’t want me in her life anymore, but those feelings don’t just disappear. Some days, I think about her and what we had, and it feels softer, like a memory I want to hold on to because it mattered so much. But then there are other times when I feel this unshakable anger and sadness. It’s not directed at her, and it’s not entirely aimed at me either. It’s just there, simmering, like a storm with no clear target.

Yesterday was the first day I felt something shift. I woke up and, for the first time in a long time, my anxiety didn’t greet me like an old enemy. Normally, I start the day at a three on the anxiety scale, and it climbs to a six by the time I leave the house. It’s a constant hum in the background, taking hours to settle. But yesterday, it was different. I started at a two, and by the time I got to work, it was almost gone.

It felt strange. Good, but strange.

I even laughed while watching Shrinking, the TV show with Harrison Ford. There’s a scene that caught me off guard, and I laughed out loud, really laughed. But then I stopped myself, almost instinctively. It’s like I have this subconscious rule that says I’m not allowed to enjoy anything, as if laughter somehow erases the pain or means I’ve forgotten her.

But the truth is, I haven’t forgotten her. I think about her every day. I still feel connected to her in a way that’s hard to explain. And yet, there’s this quiet, hesitant part of me that’s starting to wonder if I can find a way to move forward without letting go entirely.

That’s what brought me to a small, symbolic decision: signing up for a new gym, I haven't yet, but by the end of the week I plan too. I've already cancelled my old membership, or in the process of counselling it. I hadn’t been to my old one in three months. I kept telling myself I’d go back, but I just couldn’t find the will or motivation. I like working out in the mornings before work, but I couldn’t seem to wake up in time, and every day I didn’t go felt like another failure. That place started to feel tied to a version of myself I wasn’t happy with, a version weighed down by sadness, anger, and loneliness. This new gym, though, feels different. It’s been open for a couple of months now. Sure, it’s newer, with more space and fewer people, and while the membership is slightly cheaper, it doesn’t offer as much, but what it does offer, is what I need. It represents something I need right now: a fresh start. It’s not just about exercise, it’s about leaving behind the parts of me I’m ready to let go of and stepping into something new, even if I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet.

And then there’s therapy. I finally heard back from the NHS, and I start next week. For the first time in a long time, I’m looking forward to something. I’m ready to dig deeper into this pain, to figure out why I feel like I deserve to be punished and why forgiving myself feels impossible.

I don’t know what living will be like without her. It’s hard to imagine a future that doesn’t include Aleks, but maybe that’s okay. Maybe the goal isn’t to erase her or the love we shared but to learn how to carry it differently. To let it be a part of me without letting it control me.

It’s only been one day. One day where I felt like I could breathe, like I could maybe start to let go of the anger and sadness that have been my constant companions. I don’t know if I’ll feel the same tomorrow, but for now, I’m trying. I’m holding on to the hope that one day, living won’t feel like a punishment, and that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to laugh without stopping myself.