I heard that word recently and realised it describes exactly what the past six months have been like. If someone had told me just a day before we broke up that I could feel as much pain as I have, that days could be agonizing to the point of just wanting to die, that loss and grief and confusion and shock could be relentless and devastating, I seriously doubt I would have believed them. I'm little_miss_optimistic, a go-getter, and adventurer, a liver of life and a believer that all will always be well. I make things happen for myself and the people I love, good things, and I live in gratitude and marvel at how lucky I am. And then this happened, and whoa, it sat me back on my ass and sucked the breath clean out of me.
I'm far from healed. Far from over you. A long, long way from being whole again. But I can look back now and see the path I've been walking for the past six months, reflect on it, be in awe of it, and feel the first hints of gratitude that I made it through.
I wonder what the next six months, and beyond, hold for me. At best I think I'm going to spend the next little while just rebuilding the bits of my life. We had a plan for a marvellous, happy, contented, loving family and future and now that's gone. I don't know what will fill the void. Probably not much for a while, probably it's just a matter of keeping on keeping on and staying open-minded and open-hearted to what life might bring.
There's a word, and I can't bring it to mind, that describes this period in my life. Cataclysmic seems close. I lost you, the love of my life. I lost our dream of creating a happy, loving family for your children. I lost them. I lost the hope we had (especially me) of expanding our family. I lost three of my closest friends, one after the other, each independently, because they didn't like the way I retreated. I don't think they saw my pain, how agonizing it was. I don't think they looked closely enough to see that I was hanging on with a thread and that there was a real danger of me collapsing into a nervous breakdown. I knew it then and was fighting with everything I had. But I don't think they saw that, and even if they did, I don't think they could be bothered with it.
I could be wrong about my friends, I completely understand that, and I'll probably never know. Either way I lost them too.
I lost my self-confidence and I came excruciatingly close to losing my self-respect (to be honest, that's still only hanging on by a thread. I really haven't handled things very gracefully).
I know that my survival instinct is powerful and that my capacity to rationalise and compartmentalise and explain and understand and put things in their place - to make sense of stuff - is highly developed. I can only assume that these things bubbled away in the background and held me together until I could consciously do that for myself.
So now it's time to consciously do it. Little by little, to rebuild, start putting the pieces of my life back together - starting fresh in a new place, maybe making some new friends (not easy when you're deeply private and solitary, but I'll give it a shot). And maybe one day when I'm ready, maybe I'll start putting the pieces of my heart back together.
I'm far from healed. Far from over you. A long, long way from being whole again. But I can look back now and see the path I've been walking for the past six months, reflect on it, be in awe of it, and feel the first hints of gratitude that I made it through.
I wonder what the next six months, and beyond, hold for me. At best I think I'm going to spend the next little while just rebuilding the bits of my life. We had a plan for a marvellous, happy, contented, loving family and future and now that's gone. I don't know what will fill the void. Probably not much for a while, probably it's just a matter of keeping on keeping on and staying open-minded and open-hearted to what life might bring.
There's a word, and I can't bring it to mind, that describes this period in my life. Cataclysmic seems close. I lost you, the love of my life. I lost our dream of creating a happy, loving family for your children. I lost them. I lost the hope we had (especially me) of expanding our family. I lost three of my closest friends, one after the other, each independently, because they didn't like the way I retreated. I don't think they saw my pain, how agonizing it was. I don't think they looked closely enough to see that I was hanging on with a thread and that there was a real danger of me collapsing into a nervous breakdown. I knew it then and was fighting with everything I had. But I don't think they saw that, and even if they did, I don't think they could be bothered with it.
I could be wrong about my friends, I completely understand that, and I'll probably never know. Either way I lost them too.
I lost my self-confidence and I came excruciatingly close to losing my self-respect (to be honest, that's still only hanging on by a thread. I really haven't handled things very gracefully).
I know that my survival instinct is powerful and that my capacity to rationalise and compartmentalise and explain and understand and put things in their place - to make sense of stuff - is highly developed. I can only assume that these things bubbled away in the background and held me together until I could consciously do that for myself.
So now it's time to consciously do it. Little by little, to rebuild, start putting the pieces of my life back together - starting fresh in a new place, maybe making some new friends (not easy when you're deeply private and solitary, but I'll give it a shot). And maybe one day when I'm ready, maybe I'll start putting the pieces of my heart back together.
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