Some days my heart aches in ways that are difficult to describe...difficult to even admit. I stare at the ring on my finger and I feel so many conflicting emotions that it becomes overwhelming. Love, unquestionable love and desire. Hope, for happiness and comfort. But also a deep and ever-present darkness...anxiety, worry, despair.
I have stood here before. Not here, it was very different. I was...naive, gullible, innocent. He was...deceptive, calculating, cold. As more time passes the memory fades, both in importance and clarity. I don't love him anymore. I wasn't sure that would be possible back then. I was sure that kind of love was...inescapable. That the poison would linger, that his thorned vines would continue to tangle...to strangle...and I would never be free. Yet here I stand, "free". And yet I am caged, not by him or even his memory. I now realize that the real prison was made by me.
He changed me. What he did to me cut so deeply, so suddenly that I cannot pretend to be untouched, that I have somehow overcome the trauma. He abandoned me. He made me question my self-worth. He showed me that people lie, and people manipulate, and that all people do not have good intent. He tore apart everything I believed in and everything that I thought I knew was true. And the hardest part is not what he did, but that I let him.
A lot changed after this. Everything I believed in, everything I thought I wanted...it wasn't true anymore. And a few years went on, and as much as I could I healed. I dusted myself off, I stood on my own and I kept going. And a big part of me believed that I had truly healed, that I was okay.
I see now that I am not. I see the darkness within this sparkling symbol of love, of commitment, of promise. And that crack in my heart pangs. It whispers, it worries.
I'm not good enough.
I don't deserve this.
He can't love me.
I'll ruin it.
He'll give up on me.
I'll lose him.
...I'll never be what he needs.
And sometimes I feel like my soul is screaming at him...warning him. Telling him that he has made an impossible promise. Because he can't love me. Not like that, not forever. Because a long time ago someone broke forever for me. He shattered it, and he left the pieces scattered... splintered... torn.
Is it wrong to want closure? I have moved past love, and hate, and even regret. I am exactly where I want to be, but I am terrified that if I don't say some things out loud, if I don't get get some answers, that my heart may betray me. Because this busted heart...it is so good at running. So bent on escaping the inevitable. Run before he leaves you. Run before he forgets he cares. Run before he sees the fractures, the flaws, the tears.
But I am so tired of running...
Why did I stop believing in forever? Why did I begin to question whether I could ever be loved, protected, respected? Why did I give up on that white picket fence, bringing life into the world and for once feeling what family meant...real family?
He asked me if I wanted to have children the other day...and I didn't answer. I couldn't...because all I could see was another's face that day at the jewelry store when he asked me to look at rings and joked about what we would name our babies. I saw the illusion of hope in his eyes, and I remembered how it felt to be surprised...And also how it felt when the curtain fell and the truth was all that remained. It all came back...the hurt, the pain, the disappointment, the disbelief, the doubt. So, I in turn created an illusion, a distraction. And I didn't tell him the truth. The truth that I often doubt that others can love me, that I deserve to be a wife, a mother. He made me fear love. And while I can forgive what he did to me, that is something I cannot forget, something that I believe may be unforgettable.
And I think what upsets me the most is that I can't find the strength to share this with him. That I don't feel like there is a way to adequately describe these feelings and flashbacks that attack without warning. I don't even see him anymore...not really. I see those emotionless eyes as he told me that he didn't love me, that maybe he never did and that he probably never could. I hear him tell me that he chose to share his bed with another because he knew that was the only thing that would push me far enough away. I hear him chuckle heartlessly as I began to cry. And I watch myself almost in slow motion beg him to stay and feel the stabbing pain of being thrown at the wall and lose my breath as I watch him raise his fist at me. And the emptiness consumes every piece of my mind as I am forced over and over again to accept that I broke every promise I ever made myself by allowing him to remain in my life after all of this. My nightmare is more about how much respect I lost for myself than it is about what he did.
The bruises have healed. The scars from the cuts have faded. But that feeling that I was not enough lingers...buried deep it festers and with just the right push it reemerges. Swallowing me whole and bringing me right back there. To that apartment. Bleeding and bruised and more alone than I've ever been.
But as I continue to look deeper at this diamond on my hand and I force myself to look at the man that was brave enough to offer it to me I know this is different. I know that this is real. The thoughts are so conflicting that I feel ripped in two. One half screaming at me to run, to save myself from more hurt. The other pleading for me to stay, to save me from myself. And this is all boiling under the surface as he smiles at me and asks me about my day. The unseen battle. The unknown war. And I smile and I tell him about my day and the screams they settle to mere whispers for at least another day.
And I try to believe that one day I might feel worthy of the love I see shining in the eyes of a boy that I know I may never deserve.
