Things I No Longer Romanticize

Day 123 – March 26, 2026

There are things I no longer romanticize.

Chaos, for one.

I used to think chaos was interesting in a way that made it easier to tolerate. Not good, exactly. Just charged. Alive. Full of possibility. Full of mess and transformation and those weird little stories people tell themselves when they’re standing too close to dysfunction and trying to make it sound like chemistry.

Now? Now I think chaos is often just expensive.

Not all chaos. There’s the good kind too. The creative kind. The sexy kind. The playful kind. The kind that shows up when a life is alive and unscripted and unwilling to sit quietly in a beige waiting room of other people’s expectations.

I still like that kind.

But I do not romanticize instability the way I used to. I do not confuse unpredictability with depth. I do not confuse confusion with intrigue. I do not confuse being activated with being in love, aligned, inspired, or meant for something.

That lesson cost me too much.

And there are other things I no longer romanticize too.

Being endlessly understanding. Being the bigger person every time. Being the woman who can tolerate anything because she’s emotionally intelligent enough to see nuance in places where someone else would just call bullshit and leave.

Please.

Nuance is real. But so is disrespect. So is danger. So is manipulation. So is the quiet corrosion that happens when you keep extending grace to things that are not, in fact, deserving of your softness.

That is a lesson too.

And maybe that’s what I was feeling today. Not bitterness. Just the clean sobriety of no longer being turned on by dynamics that leave me spiritually underfed and emotionally overworked.

That is growth, unfortunately.

Not glamorous growth either. No one makes an exciting montage about a woman developing standards. It’s mostly just her sitting there, blinking slowly, realizing she has spent enough time mistaking what is intense for what is true.

Rude. Necessary, but rude.

Roger continues to romanticize every passing truck sound as either a deeply personal insult or a historic opportunity to bark. His worldview is dramatic but clear. I respect that.

And honestly, that may be the mood now. Less romanticizing. More recognizing. More naming things by their right names. More looking directly at what drains me, what cheapens me, what confuses me, what asks too much and gives too little, and saying: no actually, that is not profound. That is just bad for me in a coat.

That clarity feels good.

Not because it makes me less soft. Because it makes me less available for nonsense. And a woman who is still warm but no longer gullible is a very different woman indeed.

Chaos in one hand. Grace in the other.

And me, no longer romanticizing what should have never been mistaken for love, depth, or destiny in the first place.