Kate Didd

I realized I fucked up my entire life the way all leading women in a romantic comedy do: dramatically, with passion, and a soundtrack that absolutely did not match the chaos.

Picture this: freshly separated, emotionally untethered, and running straight into a rebound relationship like it was an Olympic sport and I had something to prove. Did I pause? Reflect? Journal? Absolutely not. I swan-dived into emotional turbulence and called it “healing” because, frankly, it felt electric and I had been starved for feeling anything besides functional exhaustion.

But plot twist, that wildly unhinged decision might have also saved me.

Because somewhere inside that messy spiral, I needed my ex to see me choose something else. I needed him to witness me stop romanticizing the version of love that chipped pieces off my spirit like a bad manicure. If emotional growth were a highway, I took the off-ramp labeled “unhinged but necessary detour.”

Leaving a long-term marriage is less Eat Pray Love and more Cry, Dissociate, Google “Is this normal?” at 2am. It’s grieving the life you planned while also trying to remember how to flirt without feeling like a Victorian widow.

Enter the rebound.

Not a villain. Just… loud.

He once said, “You know the fastest way to get rid of a man is to move another one in,” and then immediately panicked at the idea I might breathe near his square footage. Two emotionally confused adults speaking entirely different dialects of Attachment Issues.

And suddenly I realized: oh.

We are not fighting.

We are just wildly incompatible with matching trauma fonts.

I learned something painfully hilarious during this era: strong women attract two types of men, the ones who adore their power, and the ones who take it as a personal challenge like it’s Mortal Kombat.

I, of course, thought I could emotionally negotiate both.

Spoiler: I could not.

So I stepped back into dating like a slightly traumatized Disney princess with a calendar and a therapist.

My time? Sacred.

My peace? Non-negotiable.

My weekends? Mine.

My emotional availability? Appointment only.

And then… my ex.

He had the audacity to do something inconveniently mature: admit he fucked up, acknowledge my worth, and announce that I deserved standards. The absolute nerve of emotional growth.

To prove his point, he invited me on what can only be described as The Official Demonstration Date.

He told me what to wear. What time to be ready. That he would pick me up FROM MY DOOR like it was 1956 and I was someone worth courting. And there I stood, in the same birthday dress once ruined by heartbreak, now repurposed for Character Development.

Rebranding trauma is my love language.

He arrived with intention, tenderness, and a suspiciously mysterious Target bag (which I respected like a seasoned rom-com protagonist). He opened the car door, tucked a blanket over my legs, handed me water like I was a hydrated goddess, and off we went into the city.

And where did we go?

A paint class.

Yes. A forty-one-year-old woman, painting with three brushes, sipping sparkling grape juice, eating charcuterie like a tiny classy raccoon, absolutely DELIGHTED with life.

At one point I realized I was basically having a kindergarten lunch in heels and honestly? I have never been happier.

I laughed. Out loud. With freedom. With sincerity. With the joy of someone who forgot joy existed and accidentally tripped into it.

When the night ended, he took photos and videos, turning the evening into something tangible. A memory. A small art piece I could carry home like emotional merch.

And that’s when it hit me:

Give a woman her memory back, and she does not forget who she is.

I held his hand. I softened. I saw him not just as the man who hurt me, but as a scared boy who didn’t know how to love without armor. And strangely, beautifully, my empathy returned not from obligation, but from healing.

But let’s be clear.

I am not auditioning to be a rehabilitation center for emotionally underdeveloped men.

I am here for kindness. For softness. For the luxurious peace of not having to emotionally wrestle every time love enters a room.

As he walked me back to my impossibly cute apartment, reality peeked in like the voice of reason in a feel-good montage. We had history. Deep roots. But also deep wounds. And some lines, once crossed, do not get rewritten with nostalgia.

So we made a deal. Very grown. Very calm. Very “main character who has Googled boundaries.”

Ninety days.

No sex.

No emotional shortcuts.

No spiraling into familiarity just because it feels warm.

Ninety days for me to date. To explore. To flirt with possibility. To meet men who might speak emotional fluency and not just passion with poor grammar.

And here’s the part that feels most powerful of all:

I am not choosing from fear.

I am choosing from clarity.

Whether I circle back or step forward alone, it will be with intention, not desperation. With curiosity, not chaos.

Because the woman I am becoming does not chase love.

She attracts it.

She selects it.

She respects herself too much to settle for anything that feels small.

So yes, maybe I fucked up my life in spectacular rom-com fashion.

But I also laughed again.

I softened again.

I trusted myself again.

And maybe, just maybe…

This isn’t the story of me falling apart.

Maybe this is the montage where I finally get it right.

So what can I say now but cue the music.