“Grief is the price we pay for love.” – Queen Elizabeth II
It’s been two months and ten days and it didn’t really feel over until I watched the Warriors lose it all at Oracle in Game 6 of the finals. One of my favorite memories is jumping up and down, screaming at the top of our lungs in our San Francisco studio, tears filling our eyes as we watched them win it all in 2015. We were so happy. Now they’re on their way to Chase. They sold out, not unlike us. So far away from what and where they should be. Inevitable I guess..
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that our ten-year friendship, seven-year relationship, and two-and-a-half-year engagement is over. Of all the losses in my life, this is the one that has shaken my foundation the most. Maybe because you’ve been by my side through so many of the others. Each day I wake up and go over everything in my head.. again and again. What could I have done better? What are you thinking? Have you moved on? Are you happier now? Why did you continue to choose alcohol over us? Over me? I don’t have the keys to any of these doors and I go around and around until I’m exhausted or empowered by the answers I give myself.
When I look back on us, I am mostly happy for the time we spent together. I am grateful for your patience, your encouragement – the way you nurtured my mind, body and soul. I used to see a man who loved me so much that I never had to question it. Or at least that’s how I felt in those moments together. But when I look back at us now, I see that I did and I am questioning it. Why did you continue to choose alcohol over me?
I wonder if you’re still living in your house of lies, where things are on both of us and we just grew apart. I wonder if you’re still telling yourself that I made a bigger deal out of your drinking than it really was. I wonder if you’re still blaming my triggers. I wonder if you’re still putting all of your energy into facilitating the image of a life that’s so much better now that you aren’t being hassled or held to an impossible standard. I wonder so many things.
I asked for a clean break and I’m still so hurt and angry you haven’t reached out. I’m grappling with my lack of control and my need to shape the narrative to make myself feel better and stronger. I’m still looking to you to show me my reflection. This breakup has been so much more than just a separation from you. It is freedom from my own house of lies. The constant need to control, validate and be validated. Freedom from my dependency on others and my need to take care of everyone else around me. This clean break has left me alone with myself for the first time ever. Like a new friend I’m still not completely comfortable around, I lean a little further and further in each day. It is the one key I do have. I keep turning it over and over in the palm of my hand, wondering what I’ll find behind this door.
getting lost. 