If I’m Being Honest I Was The One Who Wasn’t Ready

6 min readDec 12, 2020

Karolina Grabowska

If I’m being honest I was the one who wasn’t ready and for the first time I’m proud of myself for it. I’m proud to admit I wasn’t ready for another flakey person or another half-hearted relationship. I wasn’t ready for another uncertain outcome. I wasn’t ready for low investment or low vibration or unmatched effort and excitement. I wasn’t ready for lame excuses and mixed signals. I wasn’t ready for another person to waste my time.

If I’m being honest I was the one who was unavailable; unavailable to unanswered calls or texts, unavailable to mind games and manipulation, unavailable to people who are still hung up on their past and unavailable to people who hold back when it comes to their emotions and their love for me. Unavailable because I’ve been available to these patterns before and all I got was more of them. I learned that people take you for granted when you compromise a lot, when you make it the norm. …

You shouldn’t make one person your whole world because if you break up you’re going to feel like you have no reason to live. You’re going to feel like your whole life is falling apart. You’re going to have an extremely hard time getting over them and moving on with your life.

No, breakups are never easy, but if you have other beautiful things in your world aside from your relationship, you’ll still have something to look forward to each morning. You’ll still have little things that bring you joy. …

There is something that embarrasses me about the idea of someone discovering my body. Even though I know I won’t be present, I obsess over experiencing this shame — of my flimsy humanity being laid bare one epic and final time. I don’t know how I can obsess about something that is fundamentally the end of all my obsessing. That’s the good thing about death, right? You’re forcibly (and finally) done with all that.

There are the biological facts of death — whether you’ve soiled yourself or your body has begun to decompose. There is also the idea of people going through your life to settle your affairs, the intimate details you kept close (the balance of your bank accounts, the contents of your bedside drawer) being touched by hands that are not yours. There is no control you can exert, no narrative you can tell about the things people find. There is a comprehensive quality to the vulnerability you face in death that I am having trouble accepting, moreso than the idea of not being alive anymore. …

1. Walk out your front door. Whenever I’m feeling like I’m claustrophobic in my own skin, or in my own life, it’s usually because I haven’t left the house yet that day. Go outside. I don’t care if it’s freezing, just leave your apartment for a few minutes and walk around.

2. Make yourself a strong cup of tea and drink it while it’s still pretty hot. Hot liquids can be incredibly calming, and the caffeine in tea disperses differently from the caffeine in coffee, so it will energize you without riling you up.

3. Write down a list of ten things you’re worried about. Sometimes when your fears are bottling up inside you, it’s easiest to let them out so you don’t feel like you need to keep them right in the forefront of your mind. …

The thing about self-esteem is that nobody is going to come along one day and convince you that you’re enough.

In all of our magical healing fantasies, we imagine that one day, we’ll cross a finish line. We assume that when we finally look the way we always wanted, when we finally make as much as we think successful people must, when someone comes along and makes us feel so high from their love — we’ll be convinced of our goodness.

This is a dangerous trap to fall into, because of course, the goal post is always moving. …

If I’m Being Honest I Was The One Who Wasn’t Ready

Written by Hiloioippu