Weekly Wrap-Up: When Longing Refuses to Leave and The Ghost Who Texted Back

How heartbreak, longing, and a ghosted ex became my initiation back to myself and my art.

DAYS 108-114 of My Life as Not-Old-Me

Dear Diary,

The week began with lots of coffee in a blur of busyness, but beneath the noise was a hollow ache that refused to be drowned out. Loneliness really is like a clingy roommate - it doesn’t care where I go or who I’m with; it insists on tagging along. And then, of course, there’s the Canadian ex. His ghost has set up permanent camp inside me, rent-free, no utilities paid, haunting everything I touch. This week the longing for him grew so sharp it felt like I was standing on the edge of some great revelation. (Spoiler: I was. Grab your popcorn.)

I’ve never felt this before. Truly, what is this sorcery? My heart was cracked wide open by a man who disappeared like Houdini with a bad Wi-Fi connection. And yet, his absence threads through my days - my writing, my painting, even my so-called “awakening.” For so long, I thought longing was a temporary infection, something curable with the right dose of being “chosen.” But now I realise: longing has been with me all along, like a persistent background app draining my emotional battery.

My lover abandoned me. My father abandoned me. My mother abandoned me. And in the empty spaces they left, I abandoned myself too. (Honestly, if abandonment were a competitive sport, my family would be Olympic champions.) I thought if someone finally chose me - fully, without hesitation - the ache would vanish. But slowly, through paint-splattered canvases, awkward devotion, and the occasional ugly cry, I’ve realised: longing isn’t here to be cured. It’s here to be held.

And, let me tell you, longing is heavy. Some days it sits on my chest like an elephant in stilettos. Other nights, it thrashes like a teething baby at 2 a.m. and my instinct is to throw it out the metaphorical window. But I’m learning: that child doesn’t need punishment, it needs love. It needs to be held, even when I’m exhausted and muttering, “For God’s sake, please go to sleep.”

Coming home to myself has meant letting longing stay - not as an enemy, but as proof that I’m alive. Longing doesn’t make me broken. It makes me human. And maybe, just maybe, it’s teaching me to love myself with the same ferocity I once begged from others (who were usually too busy ghosting me).

The start of the week was hard. Heartbreak was everywhere - relentless, unshakable, pressing down like fire. Some days I felt like Joan of Arc at the stake, except with worse hair and no sainthood to show for it. Life felt like a cruel board game I hadn’t agreed to play, with some drunk cosmic referee deciding who I get to love and who gets to leave.

This year has been nothing but loss. The counterfeit girl-gang friendships. My father, who revealed himself as a narcissist with the emotional range of a teaspoon. And the Canadian ex, who vanished and then haunted me like a motherf***er. I would like to add that I am so sick of growth pains. Not the poetic, Instagram-worthy kind where you sprout angel wings in your sleep and wake up radiating wisdom - no, I mean the gritty, bone-deep, “please let me just plateau for five minutes” kind. The kind where life seems to sneak into my room at night, dump a pile of lessons on my chest, and whisper, “Good luck, sweetheart.”

Every time I think I’ve leveled up - healed another wound, peeled off another layer of childhood conditioning, survived yet another heartbreak - life just smirks and hands me a harder syllabus. Where’s the certificate? Where’s my sabbatical? Can I get a gap year from character development? I know, I know. Growth means expansion. It means my heart is stretching, my nervous system is recalibrating, my soul is busy composting the old to make way for the new. But sometimes it feels less like blossoming and more like being yanked out of the soil by my roots and told to “be grateful, this is for your own good.”

I am tired of crying in the name of resilience. Tired of relationships being disguised as classrooms. Tired of my shadow demanding to be loved at 3 a.m. when all I want is sleep. So yes, I am grateful. But also? I am sick of growth pains. I would like a season of soft, easy lessons, please. Preferably delivered with wine, good company, and a playlist that doesn’t make me cry.

How this week’s painting started

So, I picked up my paints (and kept writing all week) - the only medicine I trust. I poured everything onto the canvas: the light, the shadow, the raw mess of being me. Without thinking. Just feeling. Each brushstroke dragged me back to him - the look in his eyes, the laughter that was ours alone, the sense we had found each other across lifetimes. And yes, despite his disappearance, I know we belonged. For a brief, searing moment, we danced a dance worth living for.

This week’s painting revealed itself as burn marks - like the body of someone who has walked through fire. That’s what I carry on my heart after this year’s heartbreak: marks etched deep by a blaze I thought might undo me. But as a friend reminded me, the Australian bush always returns after fire. Eucalyptus trees hold buds hidden under their bark, safe from the heat, waiting for the flames to pass before sending out green shoots. I realized my heart is the same. Beneath the scars, something remains untouched - patient, alive, indestructible. This painting is not only about the burn marks but about the hidden buds, the quiet resilience beneath the surface, and the trust that one day, green will return again.

“Burnt, Yet Becoming” - 120cm x 90cm x 4cm

Did it nearly destroy me? Yes. Did it split me wide open? Absolutely. Would I do it again? …Apparently yes, because I’m a masochist for love stories that make Nicholas Sparks look like a pessimist. But honestly - that love and that loss carried me closer to my art, my writing, and even to God than any workshop or textbook ever could.

For years, I performed “the light.” I airbrushed out my shadows like a bad Instagram filter. I thought that was the path to liberation. But now I see: wholeness requires both. Yin and yang are only a circle when they meet. Love, when it rips us open, is not wasted - it’s initiation. Brutal, holy initiation.

Instagram

“Burnt, Yet Becoming”

And so this simple Canadian man, unintentionally, became my muse. The irony is not lost on me: he vanished and ghosted me in the midst of our plans, but also resurrected me. Who knew heartbreak could moonlight as a creative life coach?

And then - the plot twist. After months of silence, he texted. Cue the dramatic soundtrack. My heart stopped, then bolted, then collapsed in a heap like it had just run a marathon without training. Relief and rage both stormed in at once, like two uninvited guests brawling over the last canapé. He apologised. Said disappearing was easier. Shared he hadn’t cheated, only fallen into a hole he couldn’t crawl out of (insert: “Your depth and love scare me. What if I’m not enough and you leave me?”). Somehow, that was easier to swallow than him choosing someone else. But seriously - where are the men who actually adore a woman’s depth? I seem to be scaring them all into caves.

Anyway. He sent me a song. I sent a few things back. We kept messaging and making peace with what happened. And then, naturally, I cried enough tears to refill the city river. It reminded me of The Bridges of Madison County - a love too alive to last, yet unforgettable enough to etch itself into your bones. Except my version had worse lighting, no Meryl Streep, and way more texting anxiety.

The strangest part? Realising that the abandonment I pinned on him was really just an echo of old wounds. The closer you get to someone, the more easily you’ll be triggered - because intimacy pokes at the survival brain. Our nervous systems are wired to remember pain, to keep us safe. But if you live only in survival, you never get to thrive. My parents left first. The Canadian simply stepped into the role in the cosmic drama my soul apparently insisted on rehearsing - again and again, for my growth. The belief that I was “abandonable” had been living inside me for years, quietly scripting the kind of men I drew toward me: men who would vanish, men who would confirm the story I never meant to keep writing.

But here’s the truth: I was the one abandoning myself. I was the one unmoored, untethered from my own sense of safety, forgetting that I am held by something far greater than any man - creation itself. Creation never leaves. The pulse of life, that deeper belonging, has been carrying me all along. So perhaps what I mistook as the death of love was never an ending at all, but a beginning: the birth of devotion. Devotion to myself. To my art. And to this Diary of a Woman Unravelling.

I also now understand that life is not about forever. It’s about being in it always. Nothing lasts - not even the loves that break us open. All we ever truly have are moments. The glance that sets your soul on fire. The laughter that binds two people for an instant. The love that cracks us open, even if only for a season. Everything we love, we will eventually have to let go of. And that, dear Diary, is what makes it sacred.

LESSONS LEARNED:

• Longing is not a disease; it’s more like a loud, slightly drunk dinner guest who insists on staying till the end of the party. The best I can do is offer it a chair and pour it some water.

• Heartbreak may feel like annihilation, but apparently it doubles as rocket fuel for art and self-discovery. (I did not consent to this life hack, but here we are.)

• True strength and true sensitivity are not opposites - they’re a two-for-one deal. If I want one, I have to accept the other.

KEY DISCOVERIES:

• The story I told myself about being “abandoned” by the Canadian ex was really the replay of my parents leaving me first. (Ouch, inner child. Ouch.)

• Sometimes people don’t disappear because you weren’t “enough.” Sometimes they disappear because they decided they weren’t.

• The Bridges of Madison County continues to be an uncomfortably accurate metaphor for my love life. Except I don’t have Clint Eastwood in my kitchen (the men I meet can barely measure up to his kind), just a lot of empty tea mugs.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Longing doesn’t make me broken. It makes me human.

• Everything I love will eventually leave or change form, which is what makes love sacred.

• TikTok apparently accepts both wisdom and nonsense, sometimes in the same video. (So there’s hope for me yet.)

• My new wardrobe rule: if it feels like a “trophy wife audition outfit,” it goes in the donation pile.

WHAT I HATED ABOUT THIS WEEK:

• Crying so much I’m convinced I’m personally responsible for climate change.

• Being reminded (again) that “closure” doesn’t come from the other person’s apology - it comes from me, swearing at my phone and then painting about it.

• Realising I spent most of my savings on art supplies. (Although, let’s be honest, I’d probably do it again next week.)

• The head-spinning combination of relief and rage when the Canadian finally texted. (Thanks for the apology, sir. Next time, try disappearing into therapy instead.)

Thankfully, the week wasn’t all torment. The gym guy flashed me a smile that made me briefly consider doing more squats. My seventy-year-old neighbour invited me up for tea one day and then dinner and drinks with her family the next, proving that sometimes the best dates come with biscuits and zero pressure. A guy from that coffee group dragged me to a rugby game (where I pretended to know the rules). In my new studio, I met fellow artists, spent most of my savings on supplies, and made another painting. I also had a client booking to fly in from interstate in few weeks to do intensive nervous system and art therapy work with me - which made me feel like both healer and human safety blanket. And yes, I returned to TikTok - talking nonsense, spilling wisdom, and painting all at once, like some chaotic sage with acrylics under my nails.

The week ended with a neighbour’s party, hours of setting up my art studio, and the beginnings of a wardrobe purge. I’ve finally decided to retire my “for show” outfits - the ones that scream trophy wife audition piece. Instead, I want clothes that are comfortable, feminine, sexy in that effortless, I-woke-up-like-this way. Basically, clothes that say: I am not here to decorate your arm; I am here to live. By the end, I saw myself with new clarity: I am strong, yes, but also deeply sensitive. And the truth is, those qualities are twins - you cannot have one without the other.

Still unraveling,

THIS WEEK’S VIBE:
Equal parts “Bridges of Madison County” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary.” Basically, tragic romance energy spiked with awkward humour and way too much wine.

WHAT STOOD OUT:
That the story I kept telling myself about abandonment wasn’t really about him - it was about the old ghosts in my own house. Also, that gym guy’s smile. (Apparently my heart can hold trauma and a crush at the same time. Multitasking queen.)

THE TRUTH I ALMOST DIDN’T ADMIT THIS WEEK:
That part of me was secretly relieved when the Canadian texted - because at least I wasn’t crazy, imagining it all. And yet, I was furious too (but mostly in love). Love and rage: the world’s most exhausting cocktail. Nothing can stop me from loving that beautiful crazy man.

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
What if longing isn’t the problem to solve, but the proof that I’m still alive?

THIS WEEK I CREATED:
A new painting born from fire and heartbreak. A wardrobe purge that felt like shedding a skin. And a TikTok video where I talked equal amounts of nonsense and wisdom - while splattering paint on my jeans.

THIS WEEK’S SONG: “My Wish” by Rascan Flatts - because it’s the song he sent me that also cut me like a motherf***er.

P.S. If you’re unraveling too - same. Drop a comment if you’re a beautiful disaster with good intentions.