Winning

The internet talks a lot about who ‘wins’ breakups. If you can’t say definitely if you were ‘Team Jennifer’ or ‘Team Angelina’, be real – this isn’t the blog for you. Princess Diana’s ‘Revenge Dress’ remains a sartorial historical moment that must haunt Camilla to this day and I can’t be bothered googling it but I assume the Kardashians have trademarked ‘revenge body’ at this point. My bitchy little instagram algorithm has its own take too; constantly providing me with unsolicited inspiring quotes about what makes a breakup winner; who re-couples first? who ‘glows up’? Who erases the other on social media like they never existed?

But the truth is that the only person my body is getting revenge on is me, it’s run down, hungry, sleepless and irritated, I have to credit any and all ‘glow’ to liberal usage of elf cosmetics ‘halo-glow’. And the thought of deleting the photos of my little family as it first took shape from instagram sends me right back to the right hand side of the bed for a good cry. 

In early, hazy, painful days, someone who loves me told me about this concept of ‘winning’ . I could see his pain as he gently broke the truth to me that I needed to win for myself and for my kids, I needed to get up off the floor now…soon…please?

I don’t know why this surprised me or why I rejected it at first, denial? arrogance? stubbornness? I’ve always ‘run my own race’, much to my parents’ stress and distress I’ve outright rejected the easy paths they lovingly prepared for me in favour of my own special brand of chaos and authenticity. 

But what I’m slowly learning is that he was right.  My mission to learn to sleep in the middle of the bed was a first step, a nice easy horizontal step, but the truth is I’m in a fight for my life. Not against people’s perceptions, not even against my ex, but against myself. The truth is I have to find a way up off the floor, I have to win my own battle.

And i could do it the way I’m expected, I could rock a revenge dress, I could rebound with lighting fast toxicity, double down on the halo-glow until you can see me from space, I could maybe even delete the first photo I posted of my baby girl because he’s in it? But that’s not my style. And I mightn’t have much else right now but I sure as hell have my own style.

So I find my ‘wins’ in small moments and good days. In biting my tongue when I want to unleash, in an evening without tears or a memory without rose coloured glasses. In fighting for truth when it’s hard, In sitting in front of a room full of people and telling them a story of shame with grace, In making hard decisions alone or cooking something new and scary, in the quiet peace of a home without slamming doors, in sitting in this fucking mess in shock and still finding space to laugh and dance and write and try again and love.

And I find it just laying here on the right hand side of the bed watching my daughter sleeping peacefully on the left, because she just gave me my mothers day card and it turns out… she doesn’t need me to win by anyone else’s rules, because this is all the win we need.