Love & War in your Twenties

It is true what Jordy Searcy says in one of his hit songs, it really is love and war in your Twenties.

When I moved to college four years ago, I was so excited for one big reason. Well besides not living at home anymore under any rules, I was excited to fall in love. I think y’all know what I mean to, because like many, I grew up fantasizing I would meet someone in college who would treat me right, love me well, be the “it” guy and then ask me to marry him. Point blank, I was going to fall in love in college.

And boy, I was wrong. Well in some ways I was wrong.

To summarize it all, my sophomore year in college during the big initial shutdown of COVID, I expanded on feelings I had for a guy for the past year of my life. It was a slow and unexpected love for me. I had just left a relationship that was fast and overwhelming. We took a long time to get to know each other and to me, that meant everything. It was proof that he was in it for the long haul. It seemed so healthy to me. The communication seemed so clear, and the attention was there. In fact, I felt seen for one of the first times in my life. It was wild to me how unexpected it was. He went from being one of my best friends to my complete man.

Throughout the last two years of my life, he was my number one. I made my mistakes in our time together. Some were big and some small, but all those are stories for another time. But it was love for me. I was so wildly in love and the reality is I am not sure if he ever was. I would like to believe at one point he was, but a few months ago, my world unfolded. It unfolded so quickly and aggressively, and that is why I believe there was no love. Instead of love in my twenties it became a war in my twenties. It became a war with the world, a war with him and a war within myself. And if you have ever been in a war- which I believe most of us to not ever have been- during it, and right after there are really no true winners. There is just a lot of pain everywhere. And when my whole world went up in flames from an explosion that had been building for a long time that I had no idea about, that’s what it was. Pain. Everywhere. For me that is.

You see this story is mine. It’s not his. And though I wish him all the healthiness and happiness I can, my life is 100% about my happiness and my healing right now. And back then, for me, it was painful everywhere. There was grief all over the place from losing myself, my planned-out life and a friend I cared deeply for. Everywhere I went and looked, it felt like walls were caving in down on me. I thought I had known someone better than anyone else, and the truth of the matter is I didn’t. I got played and I looked like a fool, but most importantly there was an exceptionally large lesson learned.

In order to allow myself to heal I had to do the most selfish thing I have ever done in my life. I genuinely had to find a way to not care anymore. To not care at all about him. And this is the war within myself. If you have ever met me, or known me, you might understand why this is a war within myself. But for those of you that don’t and are just learning who I am, I tend to care a lot. I am not sure how much I have to offer people, nor do I know what special talents I have, but I do know, I genuinely care about humans a lot. And if you are someone I love openly to all ends, I will care more about you than myself. Yes, I know that’s bad, but hey, we are all working on something in ourselves right now, and that’s mine. In order for me to figure out life when the big explosion took my idea of a future away, I had to shut that off. Stop caring, stop worrying, stop wondering. I had to walk away completely. It was the hardest thing I ever did because part of me wants to ask about his health, his life, his goals, but if I were to do that, I would get stuck right where I was. And so not caring, it is better than the alternative of not healing.

The reality of my situation is I am not the only one who has been or will be hurt like this. I wish I was the only person that had to walk through this, but sadly, I’m not. People walk through heartbreak more than anyone realizes, and people will be treated poorly behind the scenes and in front of the camera, but that doesn’t make it okay. And that’s where my “love” story from my early twenties has launched into something so much more. It’s a story of a girl before a boy, with a boy and the woman that comes to be after the boy. Its truth and heartbreak and healing and a guide for all my people out there battling something.

This is a story of loving myself, a story of healing and moving into a new life. With my past and my hurt, I launched this company to help others and to be honest with everyone on the story of healing. It was a vision placed on my heart over a year ago and I am so beyond excited (and very nervous) to be launching this new company. A company for healing.

Welcome to 4HER.

With Love,

Alex Ann