“Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”
-Joni Mitchell
How do you carry on when perfection slips through your fingers? The torrential waves of life continue to shift me as they please, for I am not strong enough to swim to shore. It’s easy to give up, especially when things are so bad, so hard, so… painful. Love is a risk, easily one of the best risks a human being can take. Experiencing true, passionate, intense love is the greatest feeling life has to offer. The risk comes with losing it, falling out of love, easily the most horrific, gut-wrenching feeling a human can experience.
I wake up each day with a feeling of existential dread. Guilt eats away at me like a termite as I try to wrap my fingers around a new reason to carry on. It’s difficult to look to the future when I torment myself with “what if’s” and “should have’s” but the most torturous part of my sin is that I have no way to atone. My actions, my words, my self-care (more like lack of) have created an indestructible wall between myself and my better half.
Healing comes with time, and while things are still relatively new, I don’t ever see myself fully forgiving the things that I’ve done. To be so misinformed, so misguided, and just downright stupid. I can never forgive myself for that, and it’s forever haunting to know that it took a breakup for me to see it. The idea of needing this nightmare to occur just for me to see the error of my ways makes me worry for the future.
Moving on is healthy. Moving on is responsible and mature. I thought it would be easier but… it’s not. My phone torments me, social media and instant access to multiple forms of communication often result in me fighting myself not to text her. It would be so easy to spill my guts over and over again, begging and begging for things to be different. But what good is that when the damage is already done? I don’t want to move on. It’s childish I know, but it’s honest. I’m sure like all things, time will heal this wound and eventually I will be ready for what new things await me; but I’m also so sure that a piece of me is forever permanently committed to you. How could it not? I don’t use the word love lightly, I did and still do, genuinely feel in my heart, a permanent feeling of love that will persist with me until my death.
What can I do now? It’s easy enough to say that one will seize the day and become better through hardship, and while I do believe that will happen for me eventually, I’m also honest enough to know that life will keep its watery grip on me for a while. I will continue to drift until I am ready. There are days I’m convinced the pain is over and I’ve healed, but high tide always comes and pulls me back into the sea of self-loathing.
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