Breaking Up With My Old Self: A Eulogy for a Life Half-Lived

I’m going through a breakup with my old self.

The grief runs almost as deep as when my long-term love relationship ended in 2020. I cry in waves, not because I miss that old self, but because I realize how long I betrayed my soul in the name of "safety."

Photo by Erik Kroon on Unsplash

I stayed too long in a world that kept me small, and that world keeps beckoning me.
Clocking into a hapless corporate job like a ghost in a cubicle graveyard.
Surrounded by people whose greatest ambition was to survive until Friday, anesthetizing their misery with pizza parties and empty small talk.

Soul. Deadening.

It’s a special kind of death when your work has no meaning, when your life becomes a cycle of repetitive tasks that kill your mind, body, and creativity one keystroke at a time.
You pack on pounds—not just on your frame, but on your spirit—layer after layer of numbness pretending to be "responsibility."

When your paycheck has no purpose, your life will mirror that emptiness.
Ever notice the people who spent 40 years doing something to "earn money"?
They're the ones who, even after retirement, sit hollow-eyed, spinning dull conversations about the weather, the neighbor’s lawn, or whatever pointless crap passes the time.

They have no advice, no spark, no fire left.
Because they sold it for a pension and a cheap gold watch.

And that’s the world I’m burning down inside myself.
The version of me that thought settling was noble.
The one who thought sacrificing my joy was the responsible thing to do.

Selling out for "safety" is a slow death.
It’s a coffin gift-wrapped in false security, tied neatly with a bow made of chains.

I’m shedding it—the weight on my body, the heaviness on my spirit, the story that said "this is just the way it is."
No more.

Because every time I even imagine going back to meaningless work, I feel the joy leak out of my body like air from a slashed tire.
My vibration crashes.
I feel smaller, duller, imprisoned again.
And how can I manifest a vibrant life when my entire system is screaming that I’m living someone else’s dead-end dream?

But when I think about creating something, anything, for myself—
When I imagine making a life that pulses with meaning—
I feel ALIVE.
Exuberant.
LIT from the inside.

And that, right there, is the compass.
That's the true north we’re taught to ignore, and that is the energy that manifestation is made of.

The grief is real.
The old self didn’t go quietly.
She went kicking, sobbing, clawing to stay relevant.
She begged me to stay safe.
She sold me lies about stability, about how scary the unknown is.

But now?
I’m building a new self who understands that safety was the biggest con. Safety is sold to us by the matrix created by the one percent to keep us miserable, distracted, and enslaved.
Freedom is security.
Expression is wealth.

I’m not just leaving the past behind.
I’m lighting it on fire, and throwing out the ashes. I am choosing to live a life that feels as good as it looks—whether it scares me, shakes me, or breaks me wide open.

Because I'd rather live excited, authentic, and sovereign than safe and half-dead.