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| A perfect day. |
I look at that photo, unpublished from a series taken on a hike during the first day we spent together, and I'm transported back in time to when this was new. When the excitement was just beginning. And the song, too... unofficially "ours" but one that continually reminded us both of the start. Hearing it and I'm thrust into the light and the warmth and excitement that came with finding love. I remember sending Andrew this song on our third day of talking, a few days before we'd actually met, while he was driving from Green Bay. He had said something along the lines of "I'm listening with the windows down and the sun is shining, the only thing that would be more perfect is if you were holding my hand."
In blind deep I was drawn to you,
but I never want what I need.
And my third eye was wandering,
just made it harder to see.
But like I said, I've been here before.
Quite a few of you have been here with me. And though I'm filled with a certain and particular type of pain, I guess I need to say welcome back? To you, to me... to a feeling I never wanted to feel again. Might as well cut to the chase and rip off the proverbial bandaid then, yes?
Andrew left me.
Most people have asked if I knew it was coming, and the short answer is no, I did not. Could I sense it? No. Had I maybe squinted my eyes to the truth just a little too much and missed a couple of key indicators to this, most unfortunate of climaxes? No.
Have I ever felt a pain like this one before? That one is a little more difficult to quantify.
The reason behind all of this is simple, and in some respects it is finite. Andrew felt he could not be the partner I needed, and in order to deal with his internal demons he decided the best course of action was to leave. A few of you know more detail than that, most others aren't really privy to it. Seeing as he didn't cheat on me or (fully) betray my trust, I'm going to grant him a certain amount of privacy that before now has not typically been offered in blogs such as this.
When people speak of the traumas they have endured at certain points in their lives, I always think in my head "oof, I've never been through that, but I can imagine and boy how it must suck." I never feel, or felt, I had anything of my own that was traumatic. I've never been beaten by a boyfriend/fiance. I've never been emotionally abused by a partner (as far as I know). I've never been witness to a murder or anything else even remotely horrifying in person. My friend Andy was over the night this all fell apart, racing from his apartment to my house to (literally) hold me in his arms while I sobbed and dissolved on the sofa.
After an hour or so, with my tears quieting a bit to just random intervals, I was discussing some of the deeper issues at play in Andrew's reasoning (i.e. certain traumas), and lamenting that I've never had the luxury... if that's the right word... of attributing anything in my life to trauma. Andy sort of paused, and as gently as he could, said that maybe my traumas were my breakups.
And it struck me, because he was right.
I've had two break ups before this that actually carried weight. One with Ken, that arguably should have happened a year before it actually did, and one with Derek, that happened but did not wrap itself up until two and a half months later. Both were from infidelity, and while all is forgiven and under the table now, at the time there was anger. There was so much anger, and being able to direct that at a person for something THEY did? That helps in the process. But it was a process I learned from, and adapted to. When it had happened that second time, it was a familiar territory that I was entering. Not that I wanted to, by any means, but there I was anyway.
Now? Not so much.
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| My silly guy. |
After airing my grievances and subsequently putting them to rest, Andrew cautiously shared that he had doubts about us. That he was afraid he would do something to hurt me down the line because he had never processed events from his past. That he maybe wasn't the right man for me. And that we should take a break.
I guess the optimistic part of me thought throughout the next day at work that I would come home and he would say "Hey babe, I'm sorry for how last night went, let's sit down and talk and work it out." But he didn't. I came home to (not noticing) his car packed with the furniture and belongings he had moved out here. I opened the back door to the house and saw his computer monitor sitting on the kitchen floor, and like a runaway truck, it hit me. I looked in the dining room and he was sitting there, his hands clasped in front of him, with the most anxious expression I had ever seen on his beautiful face.
I nervously sat down opposite him, and watched his eyes tear up as he tried to find the words. So I found them for him.
"Is this goodbye?" And he nodded, and the tears started from both of us. He was sorry... he was ashamed of himself... but he was collapsing under the weight of our relationship and turning farther away from the person he really is... and it wasn't fair to me.
I don't... I don't know what you say to that. You can't scream, you can't accuse, you can't swear... you just sit there dumbfounded to what is happening. Stupidly gazing at the love of your life as he tells you he is leaving, and all you can think about is "how did this happen?" We're supposed to rent a truck in less than two weeks to empty the apartment and fully move him out here; how did this happen?
Because it happened so fast. There was no warning. There was no downhill launch into an oblivion unknown. There was a rough Saturday of moodiness on both our parts, a stressful Sunday from the morning awkwardness, and then an ending Monday. I shouldn't say ending, he referred to it as "taking a break," and reaffirmed this to me when I stupidly asked "what about taking a break?"
I didn't scream or beg or really do anything. I just cried. And then I told him he'd better get a move on, knowing the five hour drive back to Wisconsin quite well at this point. So he got up and I got up and we hugged, and as I wrapped my big arms around his big shoulders, the panic really took hold of me. Because I was losing him... had lost him. Break or not. He was walking out of my life as easily as he walked into it, with no warning either time. What had started out as too-good-to-be-true had turned into a nightmare come to life.
He struggled to pick up everything in his arms and then struggled with the door, and I stood there with my hands over my mouth sobbing unapologetically. And then he was out the door, and I was on my knees wailing against the shitty wood floors of my kitchen that were next to be refinished. I realized I hadn't kissed him, that I hadn't gotten a goodbye kiss, and I hurried to the pantry window to see if he was still here. I could see his hat disappearing as he got into the car.
I opened the back door and sprinted down the pathway to the garage, swinging the gate open as he pulled away, not seeing me. And I stood there for a second, the desperation icing its way into my throat. And I walked back to the house in a daze, and I shut the back door behind me, and I screamed. I screamed a scream that I have only made twice before. One of rage and sadness and terror and pain and horrified understanding of what was actually happening. The same scream I had reserved for Ken and Derek.
I texted Andrew right away... said I hadn't gotten to kiss him goodbye... and he replied that he should have kissed me and he was sorry. And I waited motionlessly in the kitchen for him to come back and do so.
And I waited.
I just... thought he'd come back for me.
I thought he would turn around and pull in and run up the back pathway and that we'd meet again for one final embrace.
But he didn't, and I didn't ask, and then it was too late.
You go from living and breathing a person to just... nothing. It's gone. And at first it's the most horrible thing you feel you could ever possibly endure, particularly when not having any choice in the matter.
The minutes drag on.
In a desperate gaze for something, anything, your eyes land on places in the room and conjure the invisible memories of what transpired where. A kiss on that chair. A hug there. Hours spent cuddled on the sofa watching TV or playing games.
Then the deeper, harder reality sets in as you remember these things... and it's that you don't know what to do with yourself. What to do with your hands. In exasperation you shake them out and your throat clenches while your face crumbles, and the tears you thought would surely have dried up are once again spilling and you realize this is your life now. Again.
That you're back to a point of such low self-worth that you don't know how you ever did it before. How you did it twice before, actually, because this is your particular kind of life trauma. How did you pick yourself up last time? How did you dust it off and keep moving, when everything you did reminded you of the love you had lost?
It's been three days. Four, if you count the trepidation that filled me all day at work on Monday. Has it gotten easier? Yes. I won't lie or be dramatic and say it's as bad as it was that first night. But in a way, it's worse.
Worse because it is sinking in that I won't have those memories refreshed again. Because that's where they can only exist now, in this clouded part of my mind I didn't think I'd need to fully rely on, to relive what had become such a daily occurrence.
My best friend Kyle told me yesterday to "take the memories, keep and cherish them. Don't ever regret or hate them, they were pure when they were happening." And he's right, because that what it was for 99.9% of the time. We were happy. I was happy. I was so happy that I never in a million instances thought this could happen. I thought I'd have a warning maybe... that I'd see or feel it crumbling down, like a change in the temperature outside. But I didn't. Maybe part of that is on me, maybe it's not.
There is something I do know, even in the dark and sadness that I find myself in. Something I have to hold on to. I still believe in love.
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| Love |
Will that love last forever?
I don't fuckin' know. Right now, yes. Because it's easier to cling to the notion of love lasting than it is to cast it aside and shrug.
In the end, you lift your head up and take stock of who is still in your life. What friendships have you let slip by the wayside through your euphoric bliss? How many friends have you lost, how many are waiting around, and how many are by your side? I know of a couple that I lost, and that's fine. It wasn't fine a couple months ago, but in the end, it all happens for a reason. This happened for a reason too, though I'm still struggling to decipher what it actually is.
To the people that have reached out to me, through text and phone, thank you. To Andy and Renae who came to sit with me, your support is everything.
I know I got through this before with the help of my safety net of people. And I know that in the three years that have passed since I last needed them, that net has changed. Drastically, in some cases, but just as strong.
This feeling I embody now is temporary and I know it. Hopefully this break is temporary, too, but I don't know that. As the days go on and the event gets farther in the past, and as my heart begins to seal itself back up but hopefully not turn as cold and hard as I fear it will, it gets easier. Easier isn't right now... and right now I feel so utterly hopeless and alone. And it kills me. It terrifies me. In the beginning of our relationship I wanted everything "right now," I wanted the future to get here so I could spend forever with Andrew. In the end, I want everything "right now," too, for different reasons of course.
I'm leaving this blog with a song by the band Muna, one that I always thought was a fun bop with great lyrics. I happened to come across the acoustic version and it struck new chords with me, no pun intended.
To Andrew, if you're reading this, I'm still hopelessly in love you. That hasn't changed.
To everyone else, ciao for now.
I knew,
when you told me you don't wanna go home tonight,
and you tried to just shrug it off when I asked you why?
Somebody hurt you, somebody hurt you, but you're here by my side.
And I knew,
'cause I can recall when I was the one in your seat.
I still got the scars and they occasionally bleed.
'Cause somebody hurt me, somebody hurt me, but I'm staying alive.
And I can tell, when you get nervous,
you think being yourself means being unworthy.
And it's hard to love, with a heart that's hurting,
but if you want to go out dancing...
I know a place, I know a place we can go,
where everyone gonna lay down their weapon,
lay down their weapon,
just give me trust and watch what'll happen.
'Cause I know, I know a place we can run,
where everyone gonna lay down their weapon,
lay down their weapon,
don't you be afraid of love and affection.
Right now,
it's like you're carrying all the weight of your past.
I could tell your bruises, yellow, dark blue and black,
but baby a bruise is, only your body tryna keep you intact.
So right now,
I think we should go get drunk on cheap wine,
I think we should hop on the purple line,
'cause maybe our purpose is to never give up when we're on the right track.
And I can tell,
when you get nervous,
you think being yourself means being unworthy.
And it's hard to love with a heart that's hurting,
but if you want to go out dancing...
I know a place, I know a place we can go,
where everyone gonna lay down their weapon,
lay down their weapon,
just give me trust and watch what'll happen.
'Cause I know, I know a place we can run,
where everyone gonna lay down their weapon,
lay down their weapon,
don't you be afraid of love and affection, just lay down your weapon.
They will try to make you unhappy, don't let them.
They will try to tell you you're not free, don't listen.
I, I know a place where you don't need protection,
even if it's only in my imagination.
I, I know a place we can go, where everyone gonna lay down their weapon,
lay down their weapon,
just give me trust and anything can happen.
'Cause I know, I know a place we can go,
where everyone gonna lay down their weapon,
lay down their weapon,
just give me trust and watch what'll happen.
'Cause I know, I know a place we can run,
where everyone gonna lay down their weapon,
lay down their weapon,
don't you be afraid of love and affection just lay down your weapon.
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