Writing not smoking

Today I deep-cleaned my fridge and had an epiphany.

It’s been thirty-seven days since I quit smoking weed, and lately I’ve been feeling waves of judgment – toward myself, toward others, toward life in general. The kind of negativity I used to smoke away, drink away, or fuck away. I used to think I was releasing it, but really, I was just storing it somewhere deep, waiting for it to rot.

While scrubbing old sauce spills and expired jars, I realised something about human communication — about how we obsess over our whys and forget our whats.

My ex still messages me with a loop of questions: Why did you leave me? Why is this so hard? Why does it have to be this way? And I’ve been singing my own chorus of whys. Why did he treat me like shit? Why did he talk about me behind my back and still act like he loved me? Why do I attract these patterns? Why me?

Those questions defined me, until today. They made me the victim in my own story. But today, surrounded by lemon-scented spray and plastic containers in my ADHD bombshell of a flat, it clicked: the why doesn’t matter.

My why will never be understood exactly as I feel it, because it’s shaped by my history, my traumas, my tiny triumphs, my private scripts. And someone else’s understanding of my why will always be filtered through their own experiences and pain.

All that really matters is the what.

What happened.
What is real.
What I choose now.
What can we do next?

My ex wants to talk, to reason, to explain – to twist my decision into a softer shape. But the what is simple: what he did was cruel. What he broke can’t be repaired. What I know is that I don’t want that energy in my life, nor in my child’s earliest bonds.

The why is theory. The what is truth.
The why lives in the past. The what is now.

When I focus on what, I come back to presence – to my senses, to my breath, to the small facts of my day. What I can see. What I can hear. What I can touch. What I can taste.

What I can finally let go of.

Cleaning the fridge today reminded me: I can spend my life rotting in unanswered questions, or I can take the time to throw out what’s gone bad and make space for what’s fresh.

The why is weight.
The what is freedom.

Self-discovery might show me what’s spoiled, but it doesn’t clean the shelf.
Discovery is not recovery. Surrendering control and making amends is.