Cleanse The Body, Cleanse The Hoe
Reeling from a breakup, one has two options, the self-care route: exercise, eat well, expand your mind and mourn the loss; and the hoe route. The Hoe route is the one with which I am personally the most familiar. After the breakup with my first boyfriend, a toxic man who unfortunately shaped the way I would look at relationships for the foreseeable future, I decided to venture down the hoe route. It is always a party in the moment, when I am too drunk to realize what is actually happening, but the cold light of day always arrives to blast your entire life into perspective in one UGLY ray of reality. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning.
It was the summer of 2018, my boyfriend of 4 months, I know, a life-changing amount of time, just publicly and violently broke up with me. At the age of 19 I had never felt so mortified and heartbroken in my life thus far, but I had good people by my side to help me combat this tragedy. I had finally reconnected with my former high-school best friend, heretofore known as R. We hadn’t been in contact due to a stupid teenage fight that erupted our world and forever altered our friendship, which spoiler no longer exists, but again I am getting ahead of myself.
She was there to help me pick up the pieces of my shattered heart and help me glue them back together through sweat. She introduced me to the world of fitness and forever changed my life both in the positive and negative. We began working out together daily, I changed my diet entirely to start losing weight, for the first time ever in my life, and I was doing it all to get that revenge body. To get a body so banging that my sorry excuse of an ex would be begging me to come back, a body so great I could have ANY guy I desired (and it did just that), a body that I could finally be proud of. But getting this body that you fantasized about your whole life, doesn’t fix the insecurities that had been there all along. That is when the hoe route came into play quickly.
It was 2 days after this life-altering breakup that I was already making out with someone new. Just to feel the desire I so desperately craved. To this day I wish going forward it was only makeout sessions that provided me that sense of confidence that was, and is, completely lacking in my life. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. I had the confidence from the new body, I had the friendship I missed so dearly, I was happy, or so I thought. Another thing I had with me was the beginning bud of alcoholism manifesting in the copious amounts of underage drinking I was engaging in. This is where I began to run full speed up the hoe route. It was during the night when I was drunk and almost completely intoxicated that the loneliness began to settle in, I needed to find someone who would think I am beautiful, glorious, god’s gift to the world; someone to fill every empty feeling I contained inside. The night would typically end, or more accurately, the morning would begin with me somewhere I did not know, with someone I did not recognize and a person lying beside me. I would then rush home, a walk-of-shame, to then put the negative feelings as quickly out of my mind and go on to gossip about it with R. Always encouraging of my antics, because we’re all sex-positive here, I would attempt to dissuade my inner-nagging that I was a bad person. I wasn’t after all harming anyone, I was simply harming myself, under the surface of it all so that no one would know. However, eventually these feelings came to the surface after the 10th or 15th time this happened I began lashing out when drunk. That is when people saw that I was acting out of character, when it became abundantly clear that I was actually struggling living this new carefree life. It was during this time when the encouraging stopped and more concern was addressed by R, that I lashed out in a terrible way that completely shattered our friendship forever. Though I made it out to seem like I wasn’t bothered, I then went out and hoed out even more, now grieving from the loss of a friend.
It wasn’t until I was in my last relationship that I actively sought out a therapist. He and I physically met at a bar, but I really met him the next morning in his bed when I woke up in a random room next to a stranger. The relationship was short and terrible but I had yearned for someone to fill me up and it was not working. I went to seek help and received it. I had finally come to terms with the fact that I am someone who abuses alcohol, I am someone who used hookups to validate themselves instead of finding value in myself. I started feeling better and avoiding hookups this year, that’s when I met my latest ex who was and is lightyears ahead of anyone from my past. But again, I was using him to fill the emptiness inside me which I failed to do myself. This is why that relationship ended. And now I am faced at the crossroads once again.
This time I am choosing the self-care method. I am taking a detox from alcohol for 30 days. I am also going to avoid looking for some other companionship, I need to learn to be a good companion to myself before I can find someone to actually be a good mate. I am finally choosing to work on ways to fill myself, not just the quick hole-fills that the hoe route establishes. I am renewed in my sense of finding and working on my self worth, I hope that this can be a jumping point for you to reflect and strive for self-betterment.
**Note: In no way am I condemning anyone who enjoys casual sexual relationships. I genuinely wish I could have enjoyed them myself, but they were a method of my own personal self-harm which I am actively trying to move-on from. This is not a hoe-shaming message. Sex positive vibes only!**
***Note: A week after this post was written, I had a stroll down the hoe route, getting blackout drunk and making out with a total stranger. That relapse has set me back to the self-care route, however, and I am looking forward to tracking the progress in future posts!
