Impossibly Broken

I remember the moment I broke. There were a thousand little cuts beforehand. All of them hurt. Some felt like breaking, but that was just practice pain. I expected the moment to be grandiose, to be incredibly significant. Instead, it was just an overwhelming array of horrible timing, placement, and a statement of truth from a man I adored to the depths of my entire being, who could never love me more than whatever distraction was available to him in any given moment.

I wish I had been tough, stoic, graceful. I was none of those things. I was everything I never wanted to be. A desperate, pathetic, confused, sobbing puddle. Devastatingly wrecked by my own stupidity. I wasn’t even lucky enough to break in private. I openly wept in front of neighbors as I made my hysteric dash from our neighborhood garden to the front door. My ugly cry forever seared into their memory, breaking the hard-fought illusion of the strong woman I’d worked so diligently to cultivate.

I didn’t find strength in my brokenness; it was full out despair launched by the disgusting realization that I still wanted him. Every ounce of my self-respect had slowly dripped out of me, and I didn’t know it was gone until a moment of gross discovery, realizing I would still give him every piece of my shattered self. He didn’t want the pieces. He didn’t even want me whole.

My future was determined without me. My new path offered no glimpse of the deliriously romantic couple I had envisioned traveling, learning, growing, experiencing, loving together until death should part us. It was such a glorious illusion I never realized I was creating it alone. And I mourned it alone.

I hoped the pain would ease day by day. It didn’t. I felt it sharply every morning when I would wake and find that happiness was the dream, despair the reality. I didn’t rally. I muddled, got by, survived, sometimes hoped, mostly hurt. I was irreparably damaged. Stuck. Desperately wanting what I could not have. What I never had beyond my disillusioned imagination.

He moved on. Quickly. Merrily. The best version of himself. Repaired, readily beautiful and available for the next love. I built him for her. I healed the hurt that gave his demons life. I chiseled away the walls that clogged his ability to communicate. I gave my spirit to make him whole and he happily gave it to her. Everything he never gave me was hers. Unearned, unconditional, uncompromised. Unfair.

But I deserved it. Every prick of pain every callous word because I delivered the same fate to the man before him. Without any splash of kindness. So that I would be available to love the one who would destroy me. Irony and karma neatly wrapped and placed at my foolish feet.

I hoped the pain would redeem me. I wanted to love again. I wanted a love with the power to break me even harder than the last but one that would choose to build me instead. The type of love I gave him. I realized the sad truth quickly; if this powerful love didn’t radiate from him, I didn’t want it. My shattered pieces still ached to be put back together by his words, his hands, his love. I wanted the story of my life to end in his arms, happily sated from a lifetime of happiness rebuilt from the ashes of despair. I wanted the impossible.

The greatest lie ever told is that time heals all wounds. My wounds stayed raw. I refused all other remedies that were not him. I remained impossibly broken. But I loved beyond measure, beyond reason, beyond time. In my final hours I find beauty in that. And I regret nothing but the tears.