It’s in the mornings when I can still feel you lying next to me; I reach out to pull you closer because when you were in my arms, nothing else mattered. But mornings are nothing more than a dream now, and you’re not here, and you don’t love me anymore.
You looked right in my eyes and told me you loved me, that you wanted to grow old with me. I trusted you with my heart, and you broke it. You made me bitter and unwilling to open my heart to anyone for fear of getting hurt again.
My friends, family, and co-workers would tell me to move on. Get back out there, they would say. It could be worst you could be (fill in the blank), they would say. I knew all of this, and I certainly didn’t wake up every day and decide today is yet another day to be miserable. I wanted to be the happy person they knew again. But I was hurting and trying to find my way back home, but the road is longer than the rest for some of us.
As I traveled the road back, I tried to put on a brave face I would tell the world there are plenty of fish in the sea, I’m better off without you, this is for the best I’ll find someone who truly loves me. But I didn’t believe it you were my fish, and I wanted you back. The hardest part of it all is that I thought you truly loved me, and deep down, the thing I didn’t want to admit, I still wanted to believe that you did.
I would walk down the street mesmerized by couples holding hands; I could only think about your hand in mine, and each time I thought if I broke inside a little bit more. I started to notice the people in restaurants eating alone, sitting on the park benches by themselves, and even if they weren’t, and they probably weren’t, I thought they were depressed and lonely, and then I thought, my goodness, that’s me. When I would get home, I would sit down and start crying, all the emotion that I had buried all day, all the questions I had rushing in. How could you go from asking me to promise I would never leave you to leaving me in a matter of days? Why were you so unwilling to try and work it out? How did we go from planning a life together to nothing in a blink of an eye? What’s wrong with me, other couples have problems greater than ours were, yet they find a way to work it out, but you just walked away from me. Why?
BUT ALL THAT WAS THEN; THIS IS NOW
I traveled the long road of despair, depression, self-doubts, and bitterness, and with the help of family, friends, and co-workers, I reemerged the person I was before you but somehow better. The journey was difficult, oh was it difficult, but it was worth it. I realized that sometimes you must look despair squarely in the eye so that you can find yourself. Now I understand the truth, and that is, while you made me happy, you were not the key to my happiness. While I was looking for love, I realized that it was always all around me, from my family, friends, and co-workers but most importantly, within myself. Gone was my fear of falling in love again because I may get hurt, and in its place was the resolve to find the person with intellect, beauty, and the heart to love me as much as I love her. The woman to grow old with.
Today I no longer wonder what’s wrong with me but understand that many relationships come to an end, not because of one person but because both parties have outgrown it, even if one person doesn’t realize it at the time. When it ends, I’ll take each relationship as a lesson and embrace the imprint it leaves on me because it is a part of me. I will take the good in each and cherish it and the bad in each and discard it. Not so easy to do, trust me, I know, but with the help of family, friends, and co-workers, I have found the strength to do it.