Secrets From a Girl Who’s Seen it all Before: Lessons in Loving
“This time I learned a lot, not about love necessarily but about life, lying, living and moving on. Not the kind of lessons you learn from rom-coms and love songs but the kind of lessons you learn from simply doing the damn thing” (Makayla Wrigley).
April 10, 2025
Makayla Wrigley, Editor
This time I learned a lot, not about love necessarily but about life, lying, living and moving on. Not the kind of lessons you learn from rom-coms and love songs but the kind of lessons you learn from simply doing the damn thing.
So I began to wonder– is it even lessons anymore or is this just a crash course in emotional survival? Is this the part where I have to go on the hero’s journey to the darkest depths of my mind, draw my sword and battle my demons?
Journeys are cool, lessons are all a part of it but then there’s the part where we have to decide we’re done seeking out the quick comforts and fixes that break us down all over again. Again and again and again, We just wait for a different outcome to come out of the same situation, the same personalities, the same ignorance for the situation that we love to just chalk up to blind love.
A lesson is a lesson, still. So from one silly girl, who (for some strange reason) has seen it all before, to the rest of the world; here’s my secrets.
Things that feel too good to be true, probably are.
Your friends are gonna tell you that you’re being crazy, that you need to just let something good come to you and that social media searching people is unhealthy. The truth is, your safety is important and it’s a priority. You have to do your absolute best to ensure that.
All dating really is, is falling in love with strangers, letting them wear you down and become vulnerable. There is no guarantee that they’re doing the same for you. Give yourself the respect you deserve, you’re not a crazy girl or a stalker for looking for the untold truths. In all honesty, the only person you have at the end of the day is yourself; protect that relationship at all costs because if you betray your own gut, that’s just another trust that you have to rebuild.
So all of that ignoring reality that you’re doing so you can keep the fairytale, stop it. Facts don’t care about fairytales.
2. People will mirror your dreams if it helps make them feel wanted
It’s fun to tell people your plans for the future, especially if you have a creeping suspicion it’s not going to be spent with them. We have this weird survival skill to convince other people that they are exactly what we want them to be so when we do things like plan a future together, it makes it feel real.
It’s not necessarily a you problem if someone becomes your ‘dream person’ just for the sake of holding on to someone they know they aren’t capable of holding onto. It’s parasitic.
There’s a difference between compatibility and imitation. You have to figure out who is dreaming with you and who is just repeating what you say.
3. Closure isn’t always a conversation
Would I have preferred a breakup over an Irish goodbye? Yeah, absolutely. People aren’t always going to leave gracefully, though. Especially when they couldn’t even come into your life or be around you gracefully. Any clarity you can find is a gift, though. Even if it means you’re left to your own devices (even in the literal sense).
4. Love isn’t supposed to be like detective work.
If you’re constantly decoding someone—trying to read between the lines of their stories, double-checking facts, feeling like you’re chasing something just out of reach—that’s not love. Checking locations, re-reading texts, losing your patience, not love. That’s survival mode. And love should feel like peace, not puzzle-solving.
5. Just because they left first doesn’t mean they get the final word.
Disappearing feels powerful, when you’re the one doing it. It can feel pretty defeating when someone does it to you. What I’ve learned is that telling my story is my power— and that’s a real power. The moment I stopped searching for answers and decided that I had all the answers within, and I needed to write them down, that’s when I took the power back. As gutting as the truth was, it set me free from the chaos and as long as it may take, I’ll find my peace again.
6. Keep the guitar, always.
It’s not just an instrument—it’s proof. Of what happened. Of what I survived. Of what I carried out of the fire. Love doesn’t always end with soft memories. Sometimes it ends with receipts, court-level documentation and a minor in FBI research techniques. And still—you heal. Even with a strange motivation to write a case study, you’ll heal.
7. Loving someone isn’t a mistake
Trusting someone doesn’t make you foolish. It would only become foolish if you allowed the lie to define your capacity to trust and love and try again. In the eye of the hurricane, I at least know this much: what I Brought to the table was real. I showed up fully and I gave even more than I had. Someday, somehow, some way, someone will show up for me just like that.
Until then— me and my guitar will get along just fine.
So here I am, in the eye of the hurricane of hurt and healing. No prince, no fairytale, just pages of proof that I survived, a story that only I get to tell.
I think that’s the realest lesson:
I’m not— and never will be, the girl who needs rescuing. I’m a girl with a reclaimed guitar and a newfound freedom.
