Pinterest Boards and Empty Apartments

I’m not doing well today. I’m kind of falling apart. I am so overwhelmed with literally everything right now!

It started when I got onto Pinterest to look for a recipe for someone. I found it and sent it, and then of course I got distracted, as one does on Pinterest when there are pretty things. I started looking at how people decorate their homes. That’s usually one of my favorite things to do on there, and some of the pictures looked so pretty and whimsical. I started dreaming again about how someday I would go crazy and make my house a melting pot of every magical project I see.

And then it hit me...I am never going to have this.

I am never going to be able to buy a house of my own, because I live paycheck to paycheck on my own, with wages that feel criminal, and I work hard after I clock out at a second job just to keep the lights on and a roof over my head and exhausting attempt to create a nest egg that never seems to fatten-up. I will never be able to plan a project to paint my house in the bright colors I dream of, or spend a weekend planting a garden, because all I will be able to afford is an apartment with loud neighbors who slam the front door and keep my nerves on edge.

When I find someone who I think I might someday share a life with and let them in, they always find a way to crush my heart, and I’m shoved back into my tiny life alone, questioning every single thing I might have done wrong to make them leave.

People always say you have to love yourself before you can love someone else. Well, I actually did that work this last time with someone. They held up a mirror, without even knowing it, and it made me take a hard look at myself and my life and what I wanted out of love and a relationship.

I re‑evaluated what I needed.

I realized I didn’t need someone else’s love or attention to be happy. I didn’t need their approval on everything that I am. I didn’t need them to provide for me or take care of me completely. I didn’t need to fix them, or have them fix me, because nobody is really “broken.”

I figured out what I wanted.

I want a partner. Someone to share my life with, not lead me through it blindly. Someone who makes my days a little better just by existing in them. Someone I can be myself around without ever feeling like I have to wear a mask to be accepted. Someone who, at the end of the day, I can tell about my day and hear about theirs. Someone who, when I’ve had a rough day, will notice without me even saying a word and tell me to relax while they give me a long hug and say, “Don’t worry, I’ll make dinner tonight. You’re home now. You’re safe.”

I’ve been a mother for over 20 years now. I don’t want to have to mother a grown man for the rest of my life too. But at the same time, my dominant love language is Acts of Service. That doesn’t mean I’d be his slave. It means I actually find joy in doing the little things, in noticing when the person I love needs care. I want someone to plan a future with. But they never stick around long enough to be any of those things or even listen to my heart long enough to care. My hopes and dreams never seem to matter, because I’m never taken seriously with anything I do.

I could be an artist, a writer, a student, a teacher, a mentor—all of the things that I am—and it still wouldn’t matter, because I’m just an idea to most people passing through my life. I’m the “oh, she’s fun, let me hang out for a little bit and when I get bored I’ll just leave because she doesn’t have any real feelings” kinda gal.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t want to do any of this alone. Who honestly would? I just wish someone would stick around long enough to discover that I am a REAL person, with REAL feelings and REAL dreams of my own, and all I really want is someone else to share those things with.

I’ve had so many things recently to celebrate in my life, and then I look around my empty apartment. Nothing is worse than hearing great news or overcoming a challenge and looking up from the screen or walk in the door to be met with emptiness. The smile and joy slide off your face with the realization of being alone.

I know I have haters who say, “But Sarah, you had a great life with a great husband and a home and you left it all.” I know. I think about it every single day. But there is a lot they didn’t know about that life and about me at that time. Leaving wasn’t easy, but it was something I thought I had to do. I’m not here to talk about that though. I could speak volumes about that time in my life and I’m choosing not to spiral down that rabbit hole right now, because I just don’t have the emotional bandwidth for it.

Right now I’m sitting in my little apartment trying to sift through the past three weeks. I let everything go in my life during that time. I’ve suppressed feelings I felt I didn’t have the right to have for someone who made it so easy to just shut off the lights when he left my orbit.

I’ve let everything around me go because I just didn’t want to deal with it. I finally did laundry last night and it wiped me out. There are still things laying around, an overflowing sink full of dishes, and a bedroom that looks like a hurricane went through it. What once was my sanctuary is now just shadows of intimacy and conversations where I shared way too much of myself with the wrong person who never meant to stay.

I wish I could say I’m okay, but I’m not.

A battle is raging inside me about what I’m “allowed” to feel and what I’m not. I am exhausted from my body physically rejecting this reality while my brain is telling me I’m going to be fine and to just get over it, and my heart is yelling, “Just feel something already.” None of them wants to take the lead, and they keep fighting each other while my soul is trapped between all of them like it doesn’t get a say in the matter.

So that’s where I am tonight...sitting in a messy apartment that looks nothing like my Pinterest boards, grieving futures that keep dissolving, and trying to remember that just because this is my “right now” doesn’t mean it’s my “forever.”

I still want the bright walls and the wild garden and the partner who notices when I’ve had a long day and tells me I’m safe. I still want to hang my art on walls that are mine. I still want to feel like my joy has somewhere to land besides the inside of my own chest.

I don’t know how I get from here to there yet. Maybe tonight the bravest thing I can do is admit that I’m not okay, wash one dish, clear one corner of my bed, and keep that tiny part of me that still believes in more alive.

Because underneath all the exhaustion and heartbreak I know this much...I am not a layover. I am not a consolation prize. I am not just “fun for a while.” I am a whole person with a mind that never stops creating, a heart that keeps loving even when it’s bruised, and dreams that refuse to die quietly. If some people can’t see that, it doesn’t make me less real. It just means they were never meant to stay.

This is my life. This is my story. And I am allowed to want more from it than just surviving.