Life Inside Panic

I have been looking for the key, a magical answer to make it all go away and just let me forget. But I’ve come to realize there isn’t one. I think everything I’m going through is a part of of my healing and instead of trying to turn it off I have to allow myself to feel it. The fear, doubt, anger, sadness, guilt, worry, worthlessness, the unanswered questions that are never ending. Some days are good, some days are ok, some days are not so good, and some days are just unbearable. The feeling of “this is not the right thing” clashes with the feeling of “it has to be the right thing” because it’s the only thing. My past, present, and future are in question, and my dreams and nightmares have begun to blend together. I’m starting to wonder what is worse, the dreams that I know are no longer true or the nightmares that are. The sleepless nights spent lying in my bed alone, feeling so utterly lost, have become such a habit I no longer try to fight them. Then I look in the mirror and think how did I allow myself to end up like this? How will I ever love again, how will I ever trust again? Who will ever love me again? I listen to people tell me I’m strong, I deserve better, I will be ok, but it doesn’t stop my fears or hurt.  I believe the only way forward is day by day, baby steps into a new world. Learn to be confident and to smile again. There is no date on the calendar that I can look at to know when I will be happy again. It is an uncertain path I must walk down. When the sun shines and I feel its warmth, when I feel safe, when I feel comfortable, when my head stops swimming with the questions, then I will know I am finally on the way to being truly me again. Time is a great healer but I must fight through my wilderness of loss first. I have to face all of these emotions and then I will be ready to begin to live again. I will find myself again, it will just take time, and I’m sure there will come a day when I look in the mirror and see the girl looking back at me that has been lost for so long now. This will be one of the hardest journeys of my life but I will not let it break me. Life will ultimately lead me in the right direction but for now I need to allow myself time to just feel it all.

So for all of you waiting for me to figure it out, there it is. You have to allow yourself to take it all in, to feel everything you want to ignore, and to find a way to cope. You have to know that there will be days it doesn’t feel worth it but there will be a day when you will look back and say I am a better and stronger person after what I went through. Just keep moving forward until the day comes that you no longer want to look back.

I just talked to D and again I find myself in tears. I made the mistake of mentioning the visit once he gets settled and he very directly said “you do understand that we will never be together again”. And again my heart broke. Why am I so unworthy of forgiveness? I know the mistakes I have made and I take full responsibility for them. If only I could have met him now. If i could have had the opportunity to be the person he fell in love with instead of dragging him with me through my downward spiral. And now that I am aware and understand all that has happened all I want is a chance to get back what I lost. He told me I’m going to have to forgive myself and find a way to heal. To find a new life, meet someone, and start a family. Everyone of those words were daggers coming from him. I don’t want any of those things without him. I just want him. We were supposed to be forever. I don’t love him any less and for him to say he wishes things would have gone different but not be able to find some place in his heart to give me a chance is a torture I could never have imagined. I have made many mistakes in my life but never knew true regret until now. I would give anything to change this or even to be granted a fresh start. It was not me that did the horrible things that happened in our relationship and I wish that I could make D see that. To be told by the person you love most in the world that you can never make it right or start over is a fate worse than death. I will have to live the rest of my life knowing I destroyed the only thing that ever made me want to try. I can’t bear the thought that it took  actually losing him for me to get the help I needed and now that I have it, I almost feel as though it is all for nothing. Why does it matter if I’m stable if it just means I have to be sad, at least before I could just party and not care. I could hide any sadness behind my manic, reckless actions and just forget. Sometimes I think being emotionally stable comes at too high a cost. Is it worth the intense pain that comes with being aware of what I have done? Until I can have his forgiveness, I know I will never forgive myself. And until I have a chance to do it right I will always live my life in the shadow of regret and loss with pain as my companion. It is not fair to have someone let me into their heart when I can’t do the same. I have no heart left. I know I can never love someone while I am still in love with D.

I thought I was past the depression but I was so very wrong. D tells me how he is stuck between two worlds and though I never tell him, I feel the same way. I’m stuck between longing for what should be and forcing myself to move forward in a life I don’t want. My world is filled with tears, regret, and loneliness. I try to pretend that I am not there but rather in a place filled with possibility and hope. I force myself to laugh so no one notices that I no longer smile and I yell so I can leave before they see the tears. I never allow anyone to look into my eyes because I am afraid that they will see past my facade and know I am hollow. I feel so broken that I will never be even close to whole again.

Everyone likes to tell me how I should meet new people but they don’t understand my hesitation comes from the fact that I have learned a great truth in life. Anyone new you come to know is just one more person you will have to lose. Life is pain. Sometimes it comes wrapped in a pretty package but ultimately everything ends up hurting us in the end. With how deeply I hurt everyday I know I can not take anymore. I have surpassed the point where you can move forward and hold on to that optimism that life will turn out as it should. Every experience in my life should have taught me that I am not destined for happiness but I rebelled against that fact. Holding on to the hope that life will work itself out and everything bad will ultimately lead to something good. I had it all wrong, everything good eventually turns to bad. Everything that brings you true happiness will, in the end, break your heart. I have finally accepted this truth and given in to what is to be my fate. The things I wanted out of life will never be. The future I thought I had found is dead and with it died every part of me that knew hope, optimism, or desire. All that is left is a cold emptiness, a blissful numbness that only subsides when the pain and longing flood in and overwhelm me.

It is so scary that the only thing that gets me up everyday is a phone call. Sometimes it’s only 5 minutes and sometimes it’s 30. Sometimes it’s as simple as the sound of the voice on the voicemail. But that is all I have left. A voice that for a few moments is able to take away the pain. I guess there really aren’t happily ever afters and true love stories don’t have happy endings. They just have endings…

I don’t even know what to do anymore. My head is spinning so fast that I can’t even make out all thoughts rushing around. The love of my life has moved to Romania and my heart is screaming at me to follow him. But I also have this voice that is rambling on about all my fears. If I do go I will be with D although not in the way I want and I will be giving up ever getting married or having kids. But I only wanted to get married and have kids with him, so who knows if I will ever want that again with anyone else anyway. I know right now I don’t want to be with anyone else at all. I would be happier spending the rest of my life next to him as a friend then settling for someone I will never love the way I love him. And what happens if he starts to date someone else; I could never bear to see that. Then there is the fact that I have to give up being close to my family, at least for now. But he is my family also so does that even count? And I have to think about the dogs. I know I could place Zoe and Athos no problem but what about Kenya and Merlin? And Hope is such a neurotic little mess. But they are just dogs and would forget about me as soon as they settled with a new family. All I do is cry all the time. Every time I see anything that even slightly reminds me of him I break down. Every time the phone rings or there is a new message in my inbox my heart starts to race and I hope it’s him. Then when it’s not I begin to cry. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I’ve been forcing down a turkey sandwich during lunch and it’s made me sick every time and I heat up dinner and it sits there while I fall asleep. At least the dogs have been eating well. I can’t even stomach chocolate and I had my first cup of coffee today and even that wasn’t enjoyable. It’s like all of the color and the joy in my life drained away when he left. I hate being in this big empty house and seeing all of the things he left behind but I can’t bring myself to move anything of his. I feel like if I move it then that makes it real that he’s gone. It’s just so final. I keep praying that he will call and say he is coming home but I know that is not going to happen. Even if he would just say that he still loves me then all of this pain and doubt would go away and I would know without a doubt what I need to do. I just want us to be the way we were and I don’t care where we have to be for that to happen because that is the only way anything will ever be right again. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life mourning for what should have been and regretting losing the love of my life.

Reality came crashing down around me this morning as I watched him walk out the door with his coat, luggage, and my heart. I have never felt pain like this and could not have imagined the physical ache that would accompany his leaving. I knew it was going to happen but a part of me didn’t want to believe it and another part hoped he would take me with him. I have never stopped loving him, no matter what I have tried to say, and don’t think I ever will.

D you are my heart, my soul, my universe. I will love you till the day I die. Every day I will live with the pain of knowing that you are gone forever. When you hugged and kissed me goodbye, I wished something in you would wake up and you would feel the same as I do. That you would know that we shouldn’t be apart. But you didn’t and now you’re gone forever and I will never be the same.