Some of you may recognize this.
He’s gone. Fucking gone. Forever. The words keep circling inside my head, repeating themselves over and over. I’m being crushed by the weight of them - horrible, gut-tearing, soul-bleeding words. How am I going to do this? How many times will I have to try, only to fail? I can’t do it. I can’t keep doing this. This is killing me; every time I try, it just keeps happening. Not the same way, but I can’t stop it. He’s gone. He left. HE’S GONE!!! The words scream and echo and bounce in my brain.
I can barely breathe. My heart is twisting in my chest; I’m gasping and heaving, doubling over in my pain, desperate to dispel the poisonous images. I vomit and vomit until nothing remains but pain and failure. They sear my every thought, every movement, every blink of my eye. He is dead to me, and I am alone.
I have to pull myself together, somehow. I have to go back to… To do what? What can I possibly do? What can I try that I haven’t tried? What can I do that I haven’t done? My eyes sting, my lungs burn from crying. My brain hurts from the words twisting around inside, from trying to think, yet not think.
What do I do? What do I do? I’m pacing, - back and forth, back and forth throughout my house. The words loop in my mind. He’s gone. What do I do now? He’s gone. What do I do now?
There’s nothing left to do. I’d given him everything I had inside of me. Was it not enough? Was it too much? He would never say, would never tell me what he wanted, what he needed from me. He told me I was his best friend. He told me he loved me. And then she walked back into his life. Why was I not enough? What didn’t I tell him? Did I make him too happy, that he wanted to go back to being miserable? Did he miss the agonizing thoughts of pain and failure he had with her so much that he had to share them with me, so that I too would know the pain of losing someone, the pain of failure of not being enough for the one I love?
I hate you!!! My brain screams. But it does not hate him, it hates me. For losing him. For letting him go.
I lift my chin against that final onslaught. I will not be the desperate one. I will not beg. I will not plead. I will not bargain with him or blackmail him or make him feel guilty for leaving me. Let it be on him. Let him be the desperate one in their relationship. Let him be the one that wants more, who must lick his wounds in the corner when she kicks him, when she rejects his love. Let him wonder why he chose her when he could have had me, when she leaves yet again.
You want to be miserable? Be miserable. I have a life to live.
I will retrace my steps through our relationship and leave without a backwards glance, without a raised hand in goodbye. I’ve said all I had to say, except this: You know where I will be when you are ready to be happy again. Don’t wait too long or you won’t be able to catch up.
