Friday, December
the 26th, 2014.
To everyone else,
this is just the day after Christmas. Just any other day. To me, this
is the day that my entire life changed. This is the day that my heart
was broken so thoroughly, I never wanted to love again, just so that
I didn't have to feel this way ever again.
And this break
up... this wasn't the kind of break up that blind sides you. Well, at
first it was, earlier on in the week. And then, for four days, I
walked on egg shells. A dark cloud followed me around, looming above
me. The fear and uncertainty ate away at my sanity. And then on
Friday, he uttered those words... "Are you ready to have a
serious life talk?" I closed my laptop and set it to the side,
looking up at him. I knew. He didn't even need to finish his
sentence, and I didn't want him to finish it because I knew what was
coming and I didn't want to hear it.
"You're
leaving me, aren't you?" I asked challengingly. I wasn't going
down without a fight. I would not be okay with this break up and I
would make sure that I fought with everything in me to save it and
change his mind, because if I took it lying down, I'd hate myself
forever.
"I'm asking
if you're ready to have this talk." It was a Friday night. I
didn't work again until Monday afternoon. I'd have two and a half
days to try and pull myself together and recuperate the best I could,
because we all knew what was coming.
And even though I
knew, it still hit me like a ton of bricks. Knocked the wind right
out of me, and the words, because I sat there and stared at him, the
only movement were my tears streaming down my face. And that's when
he proceeded to leave me. He told me that he loved me and that he'd
always love me and that I'd always be a part of the family. He told
me that he didn't want to cut me from his life, that he wanted us to
remain friends. Best friends, in fact. He said that once we were on
the same page, but now days we weren't even in the same book. That we
were walking two different paths that couldn't be walked together.
That we made better friends than lovers.
My partner of five
years just friend-zoned me.
I sat there and I
cried. I begged and pleaded and promised to do better, to be better,
to be what he wanted. I promised not to whine as often and to have
twice as much sex. I promised him a clean house and a happier
partner. None of it mattered though. None of my promises were enough
to get him to stay with me. He had made up his mind to leave, and
that was that. One of the reasons he stated for leaving me was my
chronic illness, fibromyalgia.
Now, I have enough
anger and resentment for my illness that this was the last thing I
needed. But he told me that he was angry and that he was resentful
and that he hated everything it did to me, to him, to our
relationship and our sex life. He told me that some people are cut
out to be the spouse of someone chronically ill and some are not. He
thinks he falls in the latter category. He doesn't think that he can
be as supportive as I need him to be and that he doesn't think that
he can handle the strain it puts on the relationship. I told him that
I'd find support elsewhere and that I'd take on more responsibility
to make things seem more normal. No... that wasn't enough either.
And so I cried. We
hugged and I tried to be copacetic. But inside, absolute chaos and
pandemonium swirled in a storm of emotions, brewing just below the
surface; not close enough so that anyone could see, but close enough
that I knew it was there. When we went to bed, he told me that he
hurt too, and that this was killing him as well. That made things
slightly easier on me, knowing that the pain was shared, but not
enough to calm the choppy waters. And so the next day came and all of
my friends on Facebook wanted to know what happened. I told them,
being careful to say that things were amicable and that he wasn't the
bad guy in this; I would not stand any bashing on him that friends,
girlfriends especially, are prone to.
When I woke the
next day, I tried desperately to not remember all the things that I
was trying to forget. Except everything all came rushing back to me
and the puffy, swollen eyes and pile of tissues beside the bed were a
testament that this was real. I knew that nothing productive would be
happening that day. I sat in my recliner all day, listening to
November Rain and Say Something on repeat. I stared at the house
around me, the house that we had made a home. The house that was
ours, that we had picked out paint colours for and painted. I thought
back to the day we picked colours out and the silly arguments that
ensued about him saying no to a pirate themed bathroom and me
demanding to have pink in the kitchen to match my china. The
flashbacks flooded my memory; that's the worst part, yanno. The
initial pain hurts and eventually goes away, but the flashbacks,
those are forever and there's no changing that. There is no
convenient Men In Black memory device that you can buy at the drug
store to erase
everything. And while the pain says that I would do it in a
heartbeat... I honestly don't know if I would. I don't think so,
because I have so many fantastic memories with him, and losing them
would be like losing a part of myself.
And there's one
thing about break up's that he doesn't have to go through, that he'll
likely never experience and never know the pain of. That little
nagging voice in the back of my head, the one that hopes and prays
and wishes that he'll change his mind, that he'll say that we can
work it out, that takes me back. Except that never happens, and
that's a pain he doesn't even begin to comprehend.
I thought that I
was doing fine the day after that. And then he came home and I was
reminded that it all wasn't just a bad dream, that yesterday really
did happen. It's like standing in calm waters and then being slammed
by a tidal wave. The hardest part is waking up; when you're sleeping
you don't think about the tragedy. But then... you wake up; that's
when it hurts the most. It's the post trauma that hurts more than
anything. It's knowing that when I reach over, the bed will be cold
and empty, that I won't be getting text messages that say I love you,
or goodbye and welcome home kisses. It's like starting my life all
over again and having no idea where to begin.
And what makes
this so much worse is that I can't hate him, I can't be mad or angry
at him. Hatred and anger often makes things easier, but I can't feel
any of those things towards him, because he didn't do this out of
hatred or anger; he did it out of love. Sometimes, the hardest thing
and the right thing are the same; this was a prime example of that
statement. But that doesn't make the pain any easier.
I've told everyone
that things ended amicably. And for the most part, that's true. We
didn't scream or yell or sling venom. There hasn't been any snarky
remarks, and there was only one bought of anger and it was over the
truck's tires blowing and the ridiculous amount of money we (and by
we I mean he) had to pay. The way that I've handled this break up has
been immensely different from my break up's in the past; my age and
maturity is definitely showing. I'm able to see life past the break
up, past all the pain and tears and heartache.
But right now...
all I see is red. Red for the pain. Red for the sadness. Red for the
anger. Red for the heartache. And loss... all I feel is loss. Because
I don't just lose him once. I lose him over and over again. I lose
him every time I make your favourite meal. I lose him every time I
wear that old raggedy sweatshirt of his. I lose him every time any
number of songs comes on the radio. I lose him every time I think
about his kiss, his caress, his embrace. I lose him every time I go
to bed and want to lay there and snuggle while we talk about our day.
And when I awake the next morning and roll over and stretch my arm
out, hoping to cuddle up against his warm body and instead I feel the
emptiness, I lose him all over again.
Next month and he
will move out to the city he works in. Quiet will fall on our house
without him here. Even though he only takes up a small amount of
room, it will seem like there's a gaping hole. The first night will
be the hardest. I have notoriously has sleep problems whilst sleeping
alone and I already know that this is going to wreck me thoroughly.
After you've slept with someone for five years, going back to
sleeping alone feels... wrong.
After a few days,
I've put some thought into the future. The person, or rather people
that we pair with in the future are going to have to have great
character. They're going to have to accept that our best friends are
our ex-fiances and that we will not be made to pick one over the
other, because they will lose. But more than that... I can only
imagine how awkward it will be for them, especially at family
events. But that's really neither here nor there right now; neither
one of us are looking to jump back into a relationship and we don't
even have anyone on the radar if we wanted to.
And another note
in regards to the future... For those of you that have watched the
now finished sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, you will be familiar with
this, as Ted and Robin (two of the main characters) did this same
thing the last time they broke up; in fact that's where I got the
idea from. After the actual break up when we were talking, I
suggested that if when we've both reached 40 and we're both single,
we should get married then just so that we won't grow old alone. We
made a pinky promise that if that was the case, we'd go to the
courthouse the day I turned 40 and get married then and there. Now,
clearly I'm not going to hold out and stay single for the next
fifteen years because that's completely impractical and going fifteen
years without the comfort of a mate just seems like torture. But it
is a possible outcome. He laughed and said I better not be single at
40 because he probably will be. I too laughed and said that I'd
likely be a divorcee housewife.
Right now, it's
hard to come to terms with this and realize that it's real because
nothing has really changed in the home. We still sleep together (in
both senses of the word), we eat together, we still call each other
babe and honey and some such. Nothing has changed except for our
titles and monogamy to each other. But I know... when he leaves, that
will be when the actual break up happens and when everything will
become hard. Everyone says that I'm so well adjusted and I'm handling
this fantastically. Yeah, well, once he's gone, the explosion will
occur and I will act more like I'm going through a break up. I will
cry all the time and at seemingly random things, mope around, sleep,
go through bouts of anger, and generally be someone that no one else
wants to be near.
But then... one
day I'll wake up. I'll be in the middle of my bed, sprawled out,
instead of huddled on my side clinging to the stuffed bunny of his.
I'll get up and look around and see that I am in MY house, not OUR
house. I'll make dinner for one instead of mistakenly taking out two
plates and crying. All those butterflies in my tummy that died when
he left me will suddenly be alive again, or at least ready to be
alive and fluttering. As cliched as it is, the sun will shine
brighter, the colours will be brighter, and food will taste better. I
will have put my heart back together on my own, and that's something
to be damn proud of.
That isn't to say
that sometimes, I won't break down and cry and miss him. There will
always be that occasional night where I'll sob until my pillow is
wet, wishing and hoping that he'll come back and I'll lay in bed and
cry as I listen to the songs that remind me of him or watch sappy
romance movies because I know that things will never go back to being
the same. And I think that's the reason why we hold on to things so
tightly and why letting go is so hard – we fear that something so
great will never happen again. And of course, there will be the
second bout of heartbreak, the one where I have to watch him love
someone else. It will hurt just as bad, if not worst, than the
initial pain. But that too I will survive and may even end up friends
with her.
It's going to be a
long, tedious, tear-filled process. It will take strength and
patience to get through, but I will, and everything will be okay.
