The quiet surrounds me and my eyes are sealed shut. I’m scared because I don’t know what’s waiting for me if i open and look. I know at the very least, you won’t be there waiting for me.
It’s been maybe a month now, but i’m still coping with the loss of you. Not having you in my life hasn’t been the worst thing in the world. But sometimes the pain comes in overdrive at the most inopportune moments. I feel the hurt the most when I should be celebrating. Those life moments that I want to share with someone. The someone that once upon a time was you but the someone that is no longer.
Everything that we used to do together, I do by myself now. Waking up in the middle of the night, sweating from those eerie pill-induced nightmares. Watching our show together before I go to bed. Calling you in the middle of the day and spewing words about everything that I’m doing. It’s hard to be excited anymore because I can’t share all these things with anyone. Well, I can, but the only person I’d want to share is with you.
We had such a journey together. I was always an anxious wreck, living through hallucinations and delusions before I could get a grip of reality. And then you became my reality and my world revolved around you for nine months. It’s hard for me to say I miss you, but I truly do miss the idea of having you there when I needed a shoulder to lean on.
My reality is a little bit different now without you. I haven’t cried since that day, and sometimes, I feel like I lost a little bit of myself in the time that I was with you. You consumed my world–the calls, the waiting, the visits, everything. Everything I did, I thought of you, and everything I wanted to do was for you. It’s odd now that suddenly, everything I do is for me only.
Suddenly, I don’t know anything anymore and I’m stuck with all this biding time that I need to fill in order to forget you. And you haunt me, you really do. The pictures on my wall, the shoes on my rack, the clothes that I wear, the rings on my fingers. You haunt me and I can’t rid myself of you and the looming loneliness that I only have me now and I have to be okay with that.
And as much as I say that I want to forget you, as much as I say that I’m better off, I think truly I’m discovering that I am fine doing what we used to do myself. And I’m slowly finding the joy in a stroll along piano keys, a jaunt through a forest of books and the simplicity in a sun setting across the ocean horizon. And I’m discovering all of these things by myself.
So really, I do know myself. I do know what I like. I know my limits. And I know that even with all the cracks in my mental health, my illness does not define my existence but rather adds shades of grey to my person.
And maybe some people will find these shades ugly and uninviting. But understanding them also helps me understand the stepladder of sadness inside my heart and brain that I’ve kept under lock and key for so long.
So I’ll let myself cry. For you, for us, for everything we had together. I’ll let the cuts sink in just for today because the hurt is almost unbearable and I’m feeling a little lost. I’ll let myself feel every ounce of pain to remember you, us and everything we had together. I’ll let my mind dream up a thousand crazy scenarios and I’ll run with the nightmares because they are as much a part of me as you used to be.
I still wake up in the middle of the night and curse the dreams that linger. But I’ll listen to a song or two and hope that soothes the fear. I’ll read a book now with a glass of wine so I can fall asleep at night. Instead of calling you in the middle of the day, I’ll chat with a friend over a cup of coffee or sit and do work alone in a cafe.
The quiet surrounds me and my eyes are wide awake. I’m still scared because I don’t know what’s there, but at least I found the courage to open and look. The truth is you aren’t there, but I am. I will try to ease the scared alone.
Alone. I’m learning that there isn’t any shame in finding happiness on my own. I’m learning that you don’t need to be in my life for me to want to do things. I’m learning to live with the lonely and even though my heart breaks thinking of you now, I’m learning to mend the pieces myself.
I don’t need you to love me anymore. Because I know that I can do that myself.
Ellamental Thoughts 