I started a note called “Things I Like” because I realized I genuinely didn’t know anymore
A few weeks ago somebody asked me what kind of apartment I would have if money and other people's opinions weren't a factor.
Such a stupidly easy question.
I couldn't answer it.
I was with my diagnosed BPD ex for almost six years, and somewhere along the way I got incredibly good at having preferences that were compatible with hers.
What should we eat? Whatever you want.
What movie? You pick.
Should we go out or stay home? I'm fine either way.
Do I like this couch? Well, do YOU like this couch?
At the time I thought I was just easygoing. Looking back, having an opinion often created another opportunity for conflict, disappointment, accusations that I was being selfish, or a 40-minute conversation about my "tone." So eventually I became very flexible.
Apparently I became flexible enough to disappear.
I've been living alone for a while now and I'm functional. I work, clean, pay bills, see friends. From the outside I probably look completely normal again.
But I noticed I still do this weird thing where I automatically search for the most defensible option instead of the option I actually want.
So I made a note on my phone called “Things I Like.”
Not goals. Not red flags. Not lessons from the relationship. Just preferences.
I like lamps instead of the ceiling light.
I like grocery shopping late at night.
I actually hate scented laundry detergent.
I like sleeping diagonally when I have the bed to myself.
I prefer stupid action movies to serious dramas.
I like breakfast food at night.
I don't enjoy hiking nearly as much as I spent six years claiming I did.
I like having absolutely nothing planned on Sunday.
The list is embarrassingly mundane, but adding things to it has become one of the strangest parts of recovering.
Last weekend I bought dark green bedsheets. I stood in the aisle for way too long thinking about whether green was a weird choice, whether I'd get tired of them, whether another color was more sensible.
Then it hit me that there was no committee.
Nobody was going to interrogate the purchase. Nobody was going to decide the sheets meant something about how much I cared about them. I didn't have to make a case for green.
I just liked them.
That sounds microscopic compared to the things people here have been through. But I think this is the first time I've understood what “focusing on myself” actually means for me.
It's not becoming a dramatically new person.
It's finding out whether the person underneath all that adapting still has opinions.
Turns out she does.
And apparently she really likes green.