The Day I Blew Up My Perfect Life
By Angela Killian
Starting over after a ten-year relationship wasn’t my big Eat, Pray, Love moment. It was more like a Cheese, Boxed Wine, and WTF Have I Done montage.
Nothing says "new beginnings" like hauling your whole life in garbage bags up three flights of stairs to an apartment the size of a walk-in closet.
I’d blown up a seemingly perfect relationship by having an affair. It wasn’t just sex either, it was a full-blown love affair. It wasn’t my finest moment, but it shined a huge spotlight on what I’d been hiding for years.
From the outside, we had the perfect life together in an apartment by the beach in Australia and took fabulous overseas holidays.
Behind closed doors, I was stuck in a cycle of manipulation and financial dependence. It wasn’t always like that. In the beginning it felt like the most adventurous love story I could’ve imagined. The compromises I made along the way were so tiny, that I didn’t notice I’d lost myself until the situation was so bad that I did the worst thing you can do in a monogamous relationship. I cheated.
I’d blocked so many memories out over the years so I decided to read my old journals, trying to make sense of it all.
I sat on the floor of my tiny bedroom with a huge glass of wine, and became one of those people who screams at movie characters because the solution is so obvious-
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
“GET OUT NOW!”
Why didn’t I leave? Why didn’t I stand up for myself? As they say, “You can’t see the outside of the bottle from the inside.”
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to shake my younger self, or give her a big hug.
Unpacking the garbage bags took a day and the emotional baggage took years, but I eventually got there.
As I pieced it all together – messages, memories and journal entries – I realized that I hadn’t left a healthy relationship…
I’d escaped a relationship I couldn’t leave psychologically or financially.
In the end, I didn’t leave for another man.
I left for myself.
Facing the Sun is a memoir about following your intuition, losing yourself in love, finding home on the other side of the world, and discovering that the freedom you were searching for was inside you all along.
Facing the Sun is releasing in September 2026.
Connect With Angela
Comments