A Time of Heartbreak

My heart is broken. How do you begin telling the story that leads up to that? I never knew that having your heart broken causes physical pain, but I know that my heart felt like it was going to come out of my chest, broken through by the sobs that wracked my body. I never knew that heartbreak was to feel so much, and at the same time feel as if everything inside you just died.

Heartbreak is that romanticised word that leaves you wailing, clawing at the sheets in desperation to escape the pain, wishing you could pull your own heart and bury it in the ground so the screaming will be silenced. Screaming. Screams of agony as you see your hopes and dreams of a life crumble away to dust. Heartbreak is hearing the own voice you sob with become unfamiliar to your own ears because you can't recognize a cry of that much pain. Heartbreak is being wrapped in your mother's arms, barely able to stand with that unfamiliar voice wailing that it hurts everywhere.

How does a body hold together? How does it stay intact when your heart is having pieces of itself snapped off? How can a body not rip, tear, shatter, and shred itself apart? And who can explain the numbness of the soul that follows after the sobs have ended? A numbness inside that somehow still leaks tears, and leaves you trapped in your own mind chasing memories. Who can know such disconnect from reality as you shut yourself inside, and find yourself listless, numb. Yet, that broken heart still lives as evident from the pain that washes over it countless times and constricts in a feeble attempt to hide from itself. Who can understand except those who have already experienced it?

~ ~ ~

The night of the heartbreak a dear friend wrapped me up in this arms, and with my head tucked under his chin, arms wrapped around me, all I felt was that I didn't fit. It was foreign. It was unfamiliar. I wasn't the perfect fit in those arms because it wasn't him. How can you ever replace that place where no two bodies ever fit together more perfectly? I am locked away from that comfort, and I feel lost without it. How does anything compare to that comfort of a friend, the excitement of a lover, and the strength of a protector?

Where is my protector now? Where is this man who made me feel so safe, who cannot protect me from himself? Somehow, even at this end, I still thought he might fight for me. Some part of me wishes he would defy my requests and fight for me, even though I know this won't happen. Why would he fight now, when he would not fight against his own selfish desires for what he already had? If he never fought before, why would he fight now? I did not mean enough to him. His affection and love for me did not have a big enough place in his heart. I did not have a big enough place in his heart. For him to give in, even when he knew what the consequences would be, showed me that I am not important enough to him. I hold not enough affection in his heart.

A woman, who is loved by a man, is unknowingly to inspire him to be better. If I have not inspired him to be more, then I have failed. Since I obviously do not motivate him to be more, then I am not the right woman for him.

I feel betrayed. I feel cheated, and played a fool. The one thing I ever asked of him he would not do. He would not fight. He did not care enough to.

This man, this man who was the only one to have my heart, to have my love enough that I was willing to stay in this place, if it only meant I could be with him. This man who was the only one I ever wanted to marry. This man who was to be the only one I gave myself to physically. The only one I was to follow, take his name, support, and have a home with. He was the only one that I was willing to set aside my dreams for if it meant a life by his side. This man who claimed he loved me, who claimed I was the woman he wanted to marry, loved one part of his life more than me. He has lost me as a consequence, but he took my heart with him. What pieces I have left are shattered. How do I ever begin the task of finding those pieces, and putting them back together? How do you mend after being so broken?

He has broken me. I ache for his arms around me, to be wrapped in him wholly and to hear him tell me it will be alright. But, his are the arms I cannot run into. His is the one voice who cannot offer me comfort. He is the one thing I want and the only thing I cannot have, held off by necessity.

Skip around

I've never been good at starting from the past and working my way forward. I get lost in the details of today and the things that stand out the most in my mind. The whole point of starting this blog was to get my feelings, emotions, and memories into the written word. Hopefully, it will bring some healing from the past. So, while I started at the beginning of the story, I can't stay focused enough to start from that point and work my way to the present. This is just a note to clarify that my story may be confusing. But, it's just for me anyway. I'll be jumping all around and I'll probably be rather repetitive about the things that have affected me the most. Whatever brings the most emotional outpouring is what I will be focusing on. I just thought I'd put that out there...

He's in my dreams

I keep thinking about him. I keep dreaming about him. I have these vivid moments where I'm caught between conciousness and slipping off into sleep. I keep seeing him in these moments when I can't quite break free and wake up. I keep seeing my reaction to hearing that he is dead. I keep feeling that horrible sinking feeling, that heaviness washing over me as I realize that I'll never see his face again.

I hate the fact that something inside me still wants to see his face. After so many months I am still drawn to him. Something inside still wants to be near him. Something wants to go back to the way things were two years ago when we first started to fall in love. Everything seemed rosy-colored and exciting.

Now I feel I've managed to wrap myself so tightly around him that I don't know how to break free from him without the rest of me unravelling in the process. It's been months and still he has this hold over me. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to move on. But, that seems the typical reaction of most people who go through heartache. I'm sure I'll move on. I just never expected it to take so long. I never expected to feel the lonliness for his arms, his scent, his presence, to wash over me so unexpectedly and so heavily that I feel like I might be crused under the weight of my want for him. I feel trapped in my need for him. I know I can never go back. I don't want him back simply becuase I know my life would turn out nothing like I want or need. That's partially a lie. Something inside still wants to be with him.

I love him. He's the only man I have ever loved. I miss when I would go weak at the knees (quite literally) when he would kiss me. I miss the butterflies that would flutter all around my stomach at the sight of him. I miss him. I could go on forever about the things that I miss about him. So I'll end here before I get too wrapped up in my memories.

Problems

I'm not allowed to date. Never have been, never will be. It never really bothered me before I got with him, and only rarely did it bother me once we were together. Sure, I would have liked the freedom of being able to go out with him. After all, we were a couple. But my family has never worked that way. Dating - off limits. Spending time alone with the opposite sex- strictly forbidden. People ask me all the time how any of the girls in my family ever end up getting married. I don't have much a response to the question except that somehow it all seems to work out. Courting is how my parents would like relationships to be cultivated. It's very old-fashioned and all of their kids have cheated and been alone, unsupervised with their significant other, but somehow their rules have worked.

This man I found myself in a relationship knew the rules of the family. But, he never went to my father to ask if he could court me. Instead, our relationship took place over at people's houses and on nights when groups of friends would get together. Steadily he fell in love with me while I stayed on the brink. I liked him, there's no doubt about that. I had a crush on him and I enjoyed the affection he showered on me. But, I wasn't in love with him. In fact, my feelings for him fluctuated constantly. I knew he was falling in love with me and that terrified the crap out of me. I had endless dreams, endless ambition and falling in love and getting married wasn't supposed to happen until I was in my late twenties. But, I wanted to fall in love with him. I saw what a wonderful, strong man he was. I knew I was lucky to be with him and even while my feelings for him fluctuated, I talked myself into staying with him because I thought it would be stupid to leave a man like him.

But, he had a problem. He liked marijuana. A lot. When I first met him he hadn't touched it in nine months. Even when I got with him I never thought he would go back to it. I never would have gotten with him in the first place if I thought he had a serious problem with it. But I did get together with him and not that long into our relationship I started noticing some drastic changes in his behaviour.

When I met him and what followed

I was eighteen years old when I met him. Living in a small town, I had seen him around, but never had the opportunity to meet him. Our first conversation took place at my workplace, but being in a professional setting, our conversation was confined to business and impersonal comments designed to make customers feel more at ease. I was drawn to him from the very beginning. There was something in him that was attractive to me although he went against every physical attribute that I had always considered good looking. He was handsome, he was charming. I wanted to spend more time with this man, I wanted to learn more about him. Finally, an opportunity presented itself one night when I went to the local library and discovered him there as well. Having already established names from our previous meeting at work, our conversation easily carried into more personal things. We spent hours at the library talking with one another and a girlfriend of mine who had shown up. We talked about God and in a single night a bond was established between the three of us.

From then on the three of us spent almost every day together. It was a frenzy of lunches, dinners, late night talks about God, trips out of town for the day, campfires, and coffee dates. We became the "Three Musketeers", joined together in a instantaneous friendship that was considered an exclusive group to those looking in from the outside. The girlfriend and I spent our own time together discussing which of us this man had feelings for. It was a mystery. We could never figure out which woman he had an interest in and many times we gave up analyzing the situation, determining that he didn't have strong feelings for either one us of us and was simply looking for friendship.

This continued on for a year before things began to change. My girlfriend began developing feelings for this man, and to my own shock, I found that my own feelings of friendship toward him were steadily moving in a romantic direction. Since he was twelve years older than me, I doubted that his feelings would be returned. I felt torn. I hid my own feelings for him from my best friend, moving aside, hoping that the two of them would come together. After all, he was the best man either one of us had met and I would have been happy to see her joined together with such a strong, godly man. But, if he had deeper feelings for either of us, he kept them hidden. It did seem that perhaps he had stronger feelings for me. He brought me coffee at work almost every day. He brought me snacks as well. But, even with these gifts (which from any other man I would have interpreted as interest) he still kept a distance from me which confused everyone about his true feelings. But, like every other thing in life, his true feelings eventually came out.

We kissed each other.

I remember that night vividly. A group of friends had gotten together at a place he was house-sittting and we all ended up crashing out there. I couldn't sleep. I went downstairs to have a cigarette, and found him awake, sitting on the couch. I sat next to him and when I explained that I couldn't sleep he put his arms around me, laid my head on his chest and tried to relax me into falling asleep. Then it began. I could feel the tension rising in the moment when he began to gently rub my arms, giving me goosebumps all over. We both gave in and kissed each other.

What I remember most of all was the sinking feeling in my stomach the moment he laid his lips on mine. The intensity behind his kiss gave me the feeling that he had finally discovered a woman he could love. Being only nineteen years old at the time, I was terrified. My feelings were that of a crush, while his seemed to carry the intensity of a man who was steadily falling in love.

I felt guilt at betraying my friend's feelings for him. I felt terrified by his depth of feelings. I felt drunk with the excitement and fear of being with him. And I masked the rush of feelings and pretended to be happy only to be with him. But inside, I was terrified. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to backtrack. Since I saw no way out of the situation I had just created, I ran with it. I threw myself into making it work.

And because of that single decision, two years of love, hardship, heartbreak, and loss followed.

The beginning

This is my first attempt at telling my story. I need a secret place to share my stories. This is the start of a journey in pouring out my heart. There are things that I cannot share with the people surrounding my life and I need an outlet for the things I can never say to those closest to me.

Most of my story involves the relationships I've been entangled with in my life. I'm young. Twenty-two years old to be exact and my story mainly surrounds the man I thought I was going to marry. The first man I fell in love with. The first relationship I was in that lasted close to two years. He was my first love. I've heard that your first love is always the most difficult to get over. I haven't been in love with anyone since him so I wouldn't really know. But, I have found that even eight months of not speaking to someone doesn't heal you of the hurt of losing love. This is why I have begun to write about it. I have a hope that if I can spill all the thoughts of him out of my head and turn them into a piece of writing then perhaps I can be rid of this ache.

This is my introduction. This is the start I hope will bring me some healing.