Let's Talk Exes...

Welcome back!

Here’s a topic that seems to swirl around everyone’s conversations at some point by someone. Between ex-boyfriends/girlfriends to ex-best friends. There’s one ex not many of us talk about: our ex-self.

Now that we are in 2022, I’ve committed to becoming my best self. Mental, physical, and emotional health are my biggest goals this year, beyond the real dreams I’ve sought after.

Self-reflection. A concept I hated for years, because I knew as much as the shittiest things happening to me, there were ways I could change my life and aid myself into becoming a better me, I just didn’t want to. I’ll admit it now, I didn’t want to get better, I didn’t want better friends, I didn’t want to try to get better grades. I just wanted to live and do what I wanted. The thing is, when I did what I wanted I was unfulfilled and bored with life, I did things and went down paths I shouldn’t have. SO, I got my shit together, which let me tell was NOT easy.

My ex-self, that’s someone I’m not embarrassed by (most of the time), but she is someone I am so glad that I am no longer. She surrounded herself by fake people and bad ideas. She dangled on the edge of danger, legal troubles, and death, all the time. It was exhilarating to her, and she loved it. And the thing is, many people I still know and talk to now, knew her, they just didn’t know the intention by the actions she did.

For a long time, it was hard for me to talk about my past self. Between the trauma I went through to the effects it had on the attitude I had for life. I was lucky, I realized what I was doing was dangerous and I needed help before it was too late, many don’t realize this early. I don’t post about my past self, regardless of how much I think of her or am reminded of her, because it’s a part of me many people who talked to me daily didn’t even know existed. I’m not going to trauma dump here, or expose the deep truths I hold, yet. One day I hope to tell my story, my real deep, real raw story with all the good, bad, and ugly, but today is not that day.

Our past selves. Do you ever think about your past self? How have you changed? Who changed you? What changed you? Are you proud of who you’ve become? Are you on a healthy path? Are you on the path you thought you would be?

I can answer those questions for you.

I think about my past self a lot, but normally only when self-reflecting, however, I think about it missing aspects of her life sometimes (because life is hard dude) and sometimes I’m just reminded of a different version of myself. When I self-reflect, I think about how I would have handled a situation versus how I handled myself. I consider how my communication skills were and how they have changed. I also consider how much I’ve grown and how proud my past self would be. When thinking of my past self I used to long to go back and be her again, so I woke up one day and decided to become someone that would look back and say I’m so much better off now, I’m so much happier and healthier, which is why last year I devoted to getting better and this year I’m committing to doing what I want and being a better version of me.

As for how I’ve changed..you see last year was hard, I did a lot of huge things I didn’t plan on doing. I lost some very important people to me, while also gaining some of the best people I’ll ever know in my life. I transferred schools again and found my people here, instead of trying to go everywhere but where I belonged. I changed my life, A LOT last year, and I stand by it for every second because it changed my life for the better 100%. When I think about the old me, I don’t long to be her anymore, I honestly feel sad that at certain points I longed to fall back into the deepest parts of my life again just to feel “safe”. I’ll get into that on another day, but that’s a huge aspect into changing your life.

Now when I tell you about who changed me I’m not going to use a lot of names because most of them know who they are and those that don’t know, know the impact they’ve had on my life already because we’ve talked about it. My boyfriend for example, has changed a good portion of my life. I work to be healthier for not only myself now but us. He has changed my mind on so many topics and ideas. He’s helped me grow into my opinions instead of sitting on the sidelines. He’s brought so many of the qualities I’ve hidden for years to the surface. And I’m working through the trauma because he’s helped me realize, it is 100% worth the pain. Another person who’s changed my life, my best friend, and she can guess on who she is. We don’t always talk, but when we do it’s like we haven’t lost anytime. I know I can always call her if I need her, and even though we are currently on very different paths of life, I know we’ll see each other the first second we can. Let’s see who else… I know most of you are either wanting or expecting me to talk about my exes, I mean it’s in the title, right? Wrong. Why won’t I talk about them? Because none of them really deserve my time. So, I’ll make this short and sweet, I appreciate the lessons they taught me, I’m glad I was able to meet them in the times I did because without them I wouldn’t be where I am or who I’m with (which by the way, treats me better than anyone ever has). I won’t give them the time of day because they all did me dirty, in so many ways. Sure, I did things, but there was a reason everyone told me to run from them, even if it took me a long time to do.

As for what changed me, I’ll be honest a lot of the past times I changed it was due to trauma. From breakups to friend breakups, to moving, to mental health issues and assault. A good portion of my change was due to trauma. However, this time is different, I changed because I’m healing and I’m so happy that that’s why I’m changing.

I’m both happy and proud of who I’ve become and I cannot wait to see where I go. I’m also on a healthy path, it’s led by good people and support systems along with a healthy mindset and healing. But I will say, this is not the path I thought I would be on, not at all. I thought I’d be graduating nursing school next semester and going into the “real world” outside of school soon, but I’m not and I’m totally okay with that!

Well there you have it, “Let’s Talk About Exes” and I’m sure this is going to be a popular topic. I may make it into a series, talk about the breakdown of our past selves and how to move forward and become the people we want to, with our past selves in mind. Let me know if you’d like to read more on this topic or any other topic mentioned in this blog post!

As usual, I’ll see you soon. Follow my social media to find out more of when I post and other things I’m doing!

Love, Tori.