“Do you want to move forward in this relationship — in this marriage — with me?” I asked with a knowing lump in my throat. He sighed.

“No.”

You’d think that moment would have started a spiral. Instead, I felt lighter.

It was 9PM on a warm September night at a park down the street from the apartment we once shared, the day after what would have marked a decade since we started officially dating. He arrived late, so I’d sat with my back to a lamppost and got some work done on my laptop and my mobile wifi hotspot.

Imagine, bringing work to a divorce discussion.

(If you’re wondering what my contribution to the split was, that might offer a partial glimpse. Although it’s always more complicated than that, isn’t it?)

What followed was a summer of me telling my friends we’d get back together after our trial separation — convinced that all we needed was time. I tried to convince myself, too, even though I never fully believed it. Even when it came time to pick a new rug two months into the separation, I wondered if I should text him to get his opinion, in case we reunited. What if he came back and he didn’t like it?

But I pushed forward. I forced myself to get into new hobbies. I lounged in a kiddie pool on my patio and got drunk off Trader Joe’s canned wine because I was “free.” I bleached my hair, got rid of furniture, and filled up the newly-empty closet space. I travelled to New York, to Oregon, to Hawaii. I faced what I imagined to be my biggest fear and snorkeled over an underwater cave — because that’s what I thought healing looked like.

I thought I was reclaiming my life; I was participating in *hot girl summer*. But really, I was just losing control in a new way.

“I thought I was reclaiming my life; I was participating in *hot girl summer*. But really, I was just losing control in a new way.”

All of this was reactionary, and looking back, those adventures were a loss of control wearing the costume of a comeback. I wanted the world to see that I was doing well, I wanted my soon-to-be-ex to see that I was adventurous, capable of change and growth, and that I could be the legendary “one who got away”. I posted more on social media — not to document, but to perform — and the validation I got back only encouraged me to keep going.

The truth is, I’d been active in my own loss of control for some years by that point. I had lost control when I imagined I had any to begin with.

I’ve always been one to grasp at things that are familiar, never wanting to rock the boat or make big ripples in my life or anyone else’s, so I made myself smaller and smaller until the shrinking became the familiar. I didn’t even question it, because it seemed that everyone else was benefitting nicely from the new situation. I gave up my control in order to placate my partner, my friends, and, convincingly, myself.

And so I kept performing. I was the life of the party, I made people laugh, I showed up and made a good impression. I didn’t talk about the heartbreak — not really — just the parts that made for a good story, the parts that could be mined for comedy, the parts that kept me safely in the role of the witty, wronged woman. 

It was devastation masked as bravery.

As an example, the only time I took off work was a half day after a tearful meeting with my manager — it was her who told me to rest. I had lost so much of my own autonomy that I needed someone else to tell me I was going through a lot. I needed permission to grieve my own divorce, which is a loss of control in its own right.

I look back at my journal entries from that time with an abundance of empathy. Some of them I remember writing, knowing even then that they were falsehoods. Some I don’t remember writing at all, blurred by late, boozy, lonely nights and a wounded victim-mindset.

Here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be a marriage. It can be a job, a friendship, a version of yourself you’ve been quietly performing for years. Losing control rarely announces itself — more often, it looks like productivity, or a really good Instagram grid. Essentially, losing control is when you willingly or unwillingly cede power to someone or something else; letting go is trusting in your own autonomy, feelings, and reactions to events that lie outside of your control.

Adventures and experiences and successful Instagram posts don’t prove your worth. Self-worth is a lot more inherent. And at that point, I didn’t have it.

“Losing control rarely announces itself — more often, it looks like productivity, or a really good Instagram grid.”

There’s a memory that reframes all of this for me, and it has nothing to do with a marriage.

I was in high school, making chocolate chip cookies at a friend’s house, when she pulled out a recipe I didn’t recognize. I had memorized the recipe on the back of the Nestlé bag — I’d added my own small adjustments, convinced that I had perfected it. When she started making them her way, I got visibly uncomfortable. That’s not how I make them.

She told me, lovingly but plainly, “Emily, there’s more than one recipe for chocolate chip cookies.” I ceded, we made them her way, and I spent the whole time feeling like I’d done something wrong.

“Somewhere along the way, I had confused everyone else’s approval of the outcome with proof of my own worth. A change in approach felt like a threat to that.”

Here’s the kicker: I don’t even like chocolate chip cookies. Only the raw dough. 🙃 So why was I so hard pressed to make them my way?

Because people praised me for the cookies I made. And somewhere along the way, I had confused their approval of the outcome with proof of my own worth. A change in approach felt like a threat to that — like if I didn’t use my recipe, I’d lose the one of the things that made me valuable.

I carried that dynamic a lot further than a kitchen in high school. I carried it into a marriage, into a separation, into a kiddie pool on my patio with a can of Trader Joe’s wine, still trying to make the cookies my way, still performing for an audience I’d invented.

Two years since the divorce was finalized, I still find myself thinking about our wedding song.

We chose “Songbird” by Fleetwood Mac — beautifully tender, the kind of song you choose when you want to say I love you in the most expansive way you know how. (And, let it be known, also written by Christine McVie about her ex-husband and co-band member John McVie about their separation).

What neither of us sat with long enough at the time was this line, and how it might actually transpire for both of us in our self-love journeys:

“And I wish you all the love in the world — but most of all, I wish it from myself.“

I think about that a lot now. Not with bitterness, and not even with grief anymore — just with recognition. We were two people who hadn’t yet learned to give ourselves that love, instead losing our own control to try and give it externally instead. Maybe if we had let go of what felt expected of us, the outcome could have been different (although it might’ve also been the same). But I think we both would have arrived at that moment more whole.

But since I’ve begun letting my life unfold, instead of losing the control I’ve tried to hold so firmly for so long, my entire world has changed. I’ve welcomed so much abundance in the time since that it brings me to tears. I’ve said goodbye to people and pets and learned to love new ones, I released old working styles in favor of ones that support rest and recovery. I admitted my loneliness, then made friends via Bumble BFF. I’ve met writers, set decorators, music industry agents, archivists, lawyers, fashion designers — people who found me when I finally stopped performing and started just showing up. The marriage wasn’t a failure, and I’ll never see it that way. It was, in its own way, a recipe I had to stop relying on before I knew what it was I actually wanted to taste.

I still walk through that park where I thought I was about to lose all control that fateful night.

I think about the woman sitting with her back against a lamppost at 9PM, laptop open, doing work just a few minutes before her marriage would officially end. And how, instead of losing control, that night gave me the clarity and confidence I needed as the first step in letting go.

“I felt I had finally been permitted to let go…then I understood that I never needed permission to begin with.”

After that heavy conversation, my ex and I went to a nearby pub and shared a toast to what was about to change. We let go of what others might’ve expected of us, and instead shared a moment of genuine appreciation and shared experience. That acceptance, to me, is what it means to let go. You don’t have to be okay with the outcome, but acknowledging it for what it is? That’s the sweet spot. You’ve reclaimed what control was lost, and allowed yourself to move forward anyway.

In the aftermath of the conversation, I felt I had finally been permitted to let go. And then, slowly, I understood that I never needed permission to begin with. It didn’t mean I loved him any less. It just meant that neither of us needed to keep investing energy into something that had already ended. The lightness wasn’t indifference. It was my body, finally, exhaling. Finally letting go after scrambling, and failing, to have control for so long.

I’m still learning all the nuanced differences between losing control and letting go. Some days I still reach for the familiar recipe, still feel the old pull to perform, still catch myself composing the caption before I’ve even felt the moment. But I’m catching it sooner now — and that, I think, is the whole point.

Emily McGowan is the Editorial Director at The Good Trade. She studied Creative Writing and Business at Indiana University, and has over ten years of experience as a writer and editor in sustainability and lifestyle spaces. Since 2017, she’s been discovering and reviewing the top sustainable home, fashion, beauty, and wellness products so readers can make their most informed decisions. Her editorial work has been recognized by major publications like The New York Times and BBC Worklife. You can usually find her in her colorful Los Angeles apartment journaling, playing with her two cats, or crafting. Say hi on Instagram or follow along with her Substack, Pinky Promise.