Lovelapse

a letter on heartbreak, accountability, and the continuous work of loving oneself

Hello friend,

I had my last all-nighter 2 years, 4 months, and 19 days ago. I’ve spent these past few years prioritizing my recovery: really digging into my shit, purging myself of anything and anyone who weighs me down, and doing everything I possibly can to lead a healthy, peaceful, and creative life. But my recovery is not just from substances; it’s from heartbreak, and the two feel intrinsically linked.

Love and relapse have become so fused in my mind that dating feels inherently dangerous and therefore unappealing. It is a huge risk, and I have become dutifully risk-averse in my sober life.

It’s difficult to imagine a relationship I might want for myself now, considering I have only ever loved people I could do drugs with, worshiped bodies I could do drugs off of, kissed mouths that tasted like wine. And with the ones I dated while trying to get clean, my thoughts were otherwise occupied by an incessant need to get fucked up.

I’ve never had this much time, energy, or capacity to love someone, and yet I find I have no desire to.

A few years ago…

my life was ending. I wanted to hold her close and never let her go, not because of her, because frankly, she had become quite cold and distant, but because parting would mean facing a deep, dark abyss. I’d be alone again, and I didn’t care much for my own company.

I’d done this silly, if not emotionally manipulative, thing of mentioning I wanted to propose to her, only because I had sensed she was pulling away for good this time. Marriage was, of course, a ridiculous idea—more a final act of desperation than anything romantic or realistic—but in my mind, it was a matter of life or death. I needed to keep her. I needed our relationship to continue the impossible work of holding me together.

One of our final days together, we sat on my too-small bed, backs against the wall, arms close but not touching. She browsed through a website of lab-grown diamonds on her phone. The air in the room was stretched impossibly thin, neither of us willing to admit what we were thinking: she didn’t want to be there—and, honestly, I didn’t want her to be either. All I could think about was the room-temp bottle of Sauvignon Blanc I had hidden in the bottom drawer of my dresser. I wanted badly to be rid of her so I could drown out the impending heartbreak.

After a painful hour or two, she finally left. I fiendishly seized the secret bottle, pouring the pale liquid into a red glass filled with ice. The color of the glass let me pretend it was anything but what I told the world I’d given up. I drank it like a man roaming an arid desert would if it were water, finishing it before it had time to cool, the ice kissing my lips with the last desperate drop.

I attached myself to person selfishly, even as love and warmth slipped away. I clung to the pain, to the fear—I wanted her love, even if it had to be forced, even if she had to pretend. Anything to shield me from the inevitable collapse.

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It wasn’t just her. Drugs played a pivotal role in every significant relationship I had, romantic and platonic, either because we did them together or because they blew things up. I’ve always been drawn to people who fit into this dynamic—people I could play a victim with, people I could eventually blame for my relapse, my unhappiness, everything wrong in my life.

At each end, I refused to accept what a mess I had become. I didn’t see how strictly I followed a pattern from love to relapse. I couldn’t understand just how seriously I was using love as another escape.

It has always been my default to disappear into someone else, abandoning any trace of myself. Being in love, the way I loved, was no different than being high. It was all-consuming, intoxicating, the black hole of my obsession eating away at everything else.

When I love, I give everything, and when it ends, I’m left with nothing. I’ve never known another way.

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In this safe bubble of my sobriety, I treat love as something that could undo me. I’m wary of crushes, fleeting attractions, subtle flirtations. I keep them at a respectful distance. This life I’ve built demands attention and care. It is beautiful, and I want to protect it.

I know how easily I could give it all up the moment I fall into someone else’s arms, reorganizing my life around theirs, because it would seem like the easier thing to do, just as drinking once did. I am not interested in disappearing like that again.

The road I’m on feels right to me. It has helped me grow, brought goodness into my life, and helped me become the human I’ve always wanted to be. After a few solid years of failing, learning, and expanding, I can’t imagine a romantic relationship that would add to it rather than take from it.

It’s not impossible.
It just isn’t what my life depends on anymore.

love,
Lindsey

I’ve been reading a lot of moody queer memoirs lately (*cough*—can’t you tell?), and I loved these. Seriously, you need to read them.

1. Love Me Tender by Constance Debré.

2. A Boy’s Own Story by Edmund White. I started underlining sentences that blew me away, but had to stop because I was basically underlining the entire book.

I may know myself well enough to be wary of romance, but I still love love. How has it helped you grow, heal, or find light in a dark place? I want to hear your stories—share the love!! And if you have any book recommendations, I’d love those too.