The Train to Lisbon (Part 1)

We sat with our luggage crammed between us – a packed, hot train in the middle of summer in Portugal. I sat there sweating, with my bag across my lap, trying to breath and cool down. I looked out of the window, seeing the pastures and vineyards of southern Portugal fly by.

Then I looked at you – Looking out of the window, caught up in the musings of your inner world. The sun was shining through the glass onto your face. You looked so beautiful, so content – contemplating who knows out of all of the amazing thoughts that run through that mind.

You always look so beautiful to me. I know it’s cliché and how cringey that is, but I can’t help but feel any other way. When you wake up first thing in the morning, your eyes all crusty, still rattled from coming out of your hurricane sleep. When you look like your realest, most vulnerable self, I think your true beauty really connects to something within me.

We were both flying back to New York City the next day, our first international trip together. Our first full week together. A lot of our firsts had just taken place over the last 8 days. We got through an amazing week like it was nothing, I was falling for you.

We got back to New York City on our separate flights, and I already missed you. I never was good with an amazing experience ending and having to go back to reality. I wanted to still be falling asleep next to you and waking up to that hurricane every morning.

I felt scared. Scared that I was developing real feelings for someone. I felt vulnerable. Like I was opening myself up to feel pain and hurt again. To really feel connected to someone and let them in. To dissolve this wall I’ve put up to make sure I never abandon myself for someone else again. I’m terrified of self abandoning, of breaking my own trust again. It’s what triggers that deep inner child in me. The one who says “When I love people, they leave” and “When I love people, I leave myself”.

I felt this deep seeded anxiety, this fear and subconscious need to control my world and protect myself. The patterns and conditioning that had been imprinted on me since childhood, trying to fight through to be heard.

I’d been making such a concerted effort in our relationship to voice my needs. To be conscious of your needs while not self abandoning and standing up for mine as well. I got a text from you on Monday, saying when you’re free to spend time together that week. I felt like I had just gotten a work email asking me for a few times I’m free to chat. It essentially read “I have work stuff M-W but Thursday night I should be free”.

The wounded inner child in me awoke from a deep slumber, and awoke with a vengeance. I texted you back “Hey can you call me when you get a second? I’m not sure what this means”. A call which was an anxious-avoidant anthem, I’m sure. As I voiced how I’d like to see you more than once a week and didn’t want to feel like I’m getting scheduled like a client of yours in order to see you. A call where you told me that mid-week sleep overs were something you’d never done and that didn’t appeal to you. Where you agreed to compromise and spend Tuesday night together as well.

I came over Tuesday night, feeling rejected, feeling hurt and filtering for the negative. Already back in the wounded inner child cycle, starting my subconscious protest to my partner. A protest that was really me just trying to say “I want to feel chosen by you” and “I want to feel seen by you”. We had a good talk and passed out.

We were always good at that, talking. Talking with the goal of understanding, of hearing one another and actively refraining from any judgment. We were both bumping up against so much in ourselves in our relationship, and I think it always felt good to confide that in one another.

That’s the thing about talking. You can only talk so much, until it’s time for your actions to back it up. So, with one foot out the door, we started taking action trying to meet each other’s attachment styles, communication styles, love languages and needs. Two independent, ambitious individuals trying to compromise. What could go wrong?

I was your first real relationship. You were the first girl, after a few toxic relationships, to make me feel like I’d finally found something healthy and amazing. We were coming from completely different relationship experiences. My pattern was to be more anxious/disorganized in relationships, and hers was just avoidance.

I had a history of jumping into things too quickly. Living with two previous ex’s after dating for just a few months. That trauma bond or toxicity that I mistook for a “spark”. She had always been so career driven, so risk-averse that at any sign, she would run for the hills. My Dad was always very hot and cold, and my mom was always working. I don’t blame them but as an only child, it’s safe to say that my patterns were around people-pleasing. Her childhood wasn’t as affectionate as most when it came to her parents. She had always been very achievement oriented, focused on grades and doing the “right things”. Unconsciously learning to suppress her needs and feelings in the pursuit of success.

We were both committed to communicating and doing the work, well knowing our histories and what it might entail. As the days passed, I felt myself slowly putting that wall back up. Protecting myself. Looking more at the one foot I had out the door to protect myself. I felt drained, like I had trapped emotion, frustrated. Frustrated because I could see her gradual efforts in her actions. To be more affectionate when we’re together, to take more initiative in planning spending time together. Frustrated because I felt like I was coaching her, like she should know these things. Frustrated because I felt guilty for thinking that way, for seeing her actions but not feeling them resonate. Guilty because I knew a lot of this was my own work too in understanding my own conditioning and its impact. Battling anxiety the entire time.

Why am I not feeling her efforts or action? Why do I cognitively see it and appreciate it, but not feel this sense of appreciation and warmth? Is it because I’m closing myself off again? Is she incapable of meeting my needs?

I sat in this space for at least a week. Feeling constantly confused, avoiding my feelings with weed, work and mindless TV. Questioning our relationship, questioning myself. Enjoying our chats and time together while feeling guarded at the same time. Feeling love for you and feeling scared that I’m abandoning myself again. Just wanting answers, just wanting clarity to the answer of if we should continue this or not. I thought, I stopped thinking, I tried feeling, distracting myself, you name it. Nothing was working so I said fuck it, and I took mushrooms.

*I took mushrooms up in Maine during COVID and had one of the most profound inner journeys where I felt myself reconnecting with my inner child. Ever since then, and with a lot of the new research that has been published, I think mushrooms can have a positive impact on our mental health if used correctly.*

I put my phone on Do Not Disturb, shut the lights and closed my eyes – the “John’s Hopkins Psilocybin Study” playlist that my life coach had told me about playing in my AirPods. I felt into my body, I thought about my relationship with my girlfriend. I thought about certain moments together – happy moments, highlight moments, hard moments, moments where I felt hurt. I leaned into it, letting my mind and feelings go wherever they would take me.

I didn’t expect what happened next, as my focus shifted back to myself. Picturing my present day self as a man, strong and capable. Showing myself that I’m not that wounded child anymore. That I don’t need anyone to save me because I’m capable of saving myself. I saw myself shift from that child into the man I am today, and I reframed so many of the stories that have been circulating in my head. “When I love people, they leave”, “When I love people, I get hurt”, “I’m not good enough”. All of these tapes being overwritten with the fact that I know I got myself. If people leave, let them. If I get hurt, if I go through hard times, I’ll be good and I’ve been there before. I just learn, grow and get better through it all, and I’m proud of myself.

As I came out of my mushroom trip, I thought about our relationship again. I felt so much more at ease, but the decision still loomed – is it best for us to stay together or move on at this point?

I looked at the two possible futures:

Stay Together

Pro’s

• Successful Life Together
• Accepting unmet Needs
• Similar Interests
• Security

Con’s

• Work always comes first
• Communication & Understanding
• Lack of expressing feelings/emotions
• Potential self-abandonment to stay

Break-Up

Pro’s

• Avoid Self-Abandonment/Break Pattern
• Losing the future I imagined
• Freedom of being Single
• Growth from the relationship to now find the right person

Con’s

• Loneliness
• Feeling like I’m abandoning her
• Speaking up for myself and my needs
• Losing someone I care about

I’m seeing her tomorrow, we’re spending the weekend together and I’m supposed to meet her parents on Sunday. I have put this existential pressure on myself to make a decision by when I see her Friday. A decision that is coming after she met a big need of mine for Words of Affirmation and wrote out what I mean and what the relationship means to her after I asked if she’d be willing.

She’s such an amazing woman, and I have so much admiration for her.

I’m a hopeless romantic, so the lover in me wants to say fuck it – let’s go for it together, two feet in against the world and see what we can create. The inner child in me doesn’t want to hurt her, abandon her and doesn’t want to feel like a failure (Cognitively I know she’s a woman and can take care of herself, just like a relationship ending doesn’t make anyone a failure). The adult in me thinks that I’m risking going a long time with my needs being met, like I might be repeating unhealthy patterns, and like it’s supportive to both of us for me to end our relationship so we can both continue our own growth journey’s.

As I write this at 12:10am on Thursday night, I still don’t know what I’m going to do.