what love does to a survivor

on aging, desire, grief, and learning to live inside the fire

the kiss — francesco hayez, 1859

today i am tender.

i want to write openly about a new relationship i was protecting in the quiet of my heart, known only to a few.

i’ll keep his identity private, for his sake.

when we began talking and long-distance dating, i kept it very quiet.

there is a significant age gap — me as the older one.

a taboo thing, even though you see it reversed to a perverted degree all the time.

but god forbid an older woman is desired by a younger man.

as women, we learn early that our worth is measured by a patriarchal world in relation to our wombs, our age, and whether we can perform our primary purpose before becoming obsolete.

ageism + sexism.

yes. it exists.

i have been searching for images of women my age in media who are vibrant, sexy, full of the sacred and divine feminine presence i feel rising in my blood.

as my skin begins to sag, and i fight it with my wallet, in my desire to be youthful and smooth still.

where are the sacred feminine archetypes?

the sensual, love-infused, sexual goddesses aging and sitting in their sovereignty?

where are they?

i feel invisible when i look for her.

for me. for us.

maybe i am becoming her. maybe that’s the terrifying part.

so i fight it.

and my daughters watch me.

i know i am not being a good role model when i resist my skin’s natural aging.

and yet...

the money pours out. for the facials, for the halo laser that treats sun damage and wrinkles together, for the botox that makes my tired forehead look less tired.

and then i meet this human.

he is young and sweet and pursuing me.

he is brilliant. a writer. he finds me here.

he noticed me after my first live session. february 11.

and we begin to talk and text.

and because we met here, i am unfiltered and it pours out.

text spamming, my teenage daughter points out.

but i don’t stop.

because he says he likes my words.

he loves listening to my voice.

but then... well... the wounds.

i am a survivor.

child sexual abuse from the beginning.

domestic violence and an attack that left me unconscious and houseless, running with two toddlers.

then a meeting of my soul mate. my rock. the love of my life.

at the dog park. i wrote about it here. a rebuild.

but he dies eight years later of cancer, leaving me with our toddler daughter, our six-year-old son, and my two beautiful daughters he had taken under his wing as his own.

i am now almost four years in the furnace of grief and loss.

i have not left it. i have learned to live inside it.

a cracking open that revealed the sexual abuse.

that allowed me to save my children from the same fate.

but not my oldest. i couldn’t save her in time.

but i fight for her now.

and i tell my kids that i may have ADHD and forget parent meetings and doctor appointments. i may be late to school with them every morning, but i would die fighting to protect them. and they get it.

the house is messy. the evening mealtimes that once marked the end of each day — a sacred container in their childhood — happen once a week at best.

bedtimes around 10pm instead of 8pm for the littles, while the teens are usually up past midnight.

and inside this broken-open but healing container, i began to feel love bloom in my chest.

it became a strong tornado that threatened to lift the entire home of my selfhood and dash it against the cold, hard ground at a million miles an hour.

the fear. the anxiety.

the self-consciousness of being older and feeling broken through it all.

long-distance desire raged through my tender and aging soul, reminding me of my eternal youth and laughing in my face for even attempting to control a gale force of this magnitude.

but then the container wasn’t strong enough.

mental health crisis on both ends.

was it love?

was it trauma bonding?

divine feminine meeting divine masculine?

he wrote it first on my instagram, then again in my substack dms, after i’d spoken about the divine feminine rising in a live session. he is neurodivergent and about as far from a player as a person can be.

it made me laugh and roll my eyes at the same time.

and then it made me look twice.

or is it two broken and highly sensitive humans inside a chaotic storm with no calm in sight.

push… pull...

passion meets wounding meets... what, exactly?

finn comes to me in dreams and while i’m driving, tears streaming down my face.

love him and you’ll be loving me.

but no, i sob... i want you...

easy to say, since i’m dead.

he gently responds in my head.

but loving doesn’t seem to be enough. the pain for both of us too great. the distance too large. the age gap too big.

so i pull back to center.

i learn that the becoming is messy.

i am a hot mess.

he is a hot mess.

and we are two humans becoming.

learning. growing. but maybe not together.

we are learning as humans that we can rest in our healed centers and meet others there.

we can heal and learn and grow and gently release when it’s time.

instead of remaining attached out of social conditioning and codependence.

we can learn to cultivate a new way of being in relationship — where we meet in love, exchange this energy, and then move on. or not. as necessary.

but easier said than done.

panic. pain. sadness. fear.

that’s what gets stirred up as we heal.

but healing we are anyway.

future unknown.

i love you all.

thanks for being here with me through it all. it means the world.

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i am a writer, speaker, and musician devoted to healing and embodiment. i share essays, poetry, and original music through venus consciousness. i’d love to walk this path with you. 💞