10 More Days

I can't breathe. I am frantically kicking and grasping my surrounding, trying to not sink deeper. But it is no use. I am drowning. My lungs burn and my heart is ready to explode. With every breathe I take I am drowning even more; it pervades my throat and gag me, choke me. I try to call for help, but no one can hear me. Please. Please help. Please.

You think after almost a year I will get over it. Apparently I have not. The horror and the pain is still as fresh as it was almost a year before, maybe even worse. 10 more days before the D-Day, before I found out about him and her. If anything, it feels a lot worse. Back then my Fight or Flight reaction dominated my mind. Surviving in US took priority: finance arrangement, furnishing my apartment, divorce proceeding. After that I was busy pursuing my 'new' life, always running and running, achieving one accomplishment and then another. I moved so fast that despite my occassional bawling and anger now and then, I don't really stop to let everything sink in. And now it came back with a vengeance.

It is a complicated feeling because I love my life. A lot. As I am writing this I was also busy joking with a fellow bus buddy about going to Tijuana. He teased me mercilessly about my fear of getting stuck at the border, and we were laughing heartily about that. I would dance all night and play games all day. If I was told this is the life I will have in exchange to the end of us, I might still go with it. Yet I am still getting drowned in the emotion, the tears still fell on my cheeks. I am still looking at the calendar with heavy heart, as if counting the days I had left to live.

I have tried to snapped out of it, heaven knows I've tried. My social agenda in June/July is packed. I asked a friend to stay with me during the weekend so I have someone to hold. I call another one, over and over and over. We talked nonsense on the phone, but my friend knew what lies hidden beneath the jokes: "Don't leave me. Don't let me be alone. Stay with me." All I want right now, all I need is someone to hug me tight and let me cry on his/her shoulder, while he/she gently pat my head. All I need is to feel safe once more, to know I am not alone.

But I can't. It has been going on too long. I can't keep depending on other people. They might think I am crazy, or worse, leave me. Which is a laughable idea, actually. It'll take a lot, and I mean A LOT, for my closest friends to walk away from me. But that doesn't mean I should take them for granted and keep burdening them with this (temporary) insanity. I am a good girl. Good girl doesn't make trouble for herself or other people. I am a good girl. I have always been a good girl, have I not?

Hidden beneath my layer of anger and disgust towards him was that question: "I have been a good girl, so why did you go?" It was a question unspoken, quickly killed with a snap of "Oh silly girl, you know why!" everytime it passed my mind. And I do know why. The logical part of me understand everything. The logical part of me watches everything unfold and acknowledge the pain of every one involves. The logical part of me knows that this is how it should be, there is no other way.

Yet still I ask: "Why did you do it? I love you." Because I did love him. With all my heart. I did give him my everything: my love, my heart, my trust. I thought we could make it through the end of our days. We couldn't even make it to our 3rd anniversary. And I loved him so much. I couldn't even say it out loud before, because people will think I am stupid if I said I love a man who treated me so bad; or worse, think that I don't respect what they did for me or respect myself. That's why I played it cool, I downplayed it by acting strong and laughed at his life choices. I joke about things and rolled my eyes when talking about him. I wasn't strong or brave enough to admit it then, but I am now. I loved him.

I lost my love that day, both him and the love I had in me. It was a beautiful love. I nurtured it and guard it with all my might, yet it was killed that day. Logic can't help me now in my state of grief. There is no amount of reasoning that can help me snap out of the emotion that binds me, I have to snap free myself by letting my emotion run its course. It helps to talk/write about it, as it enables me to see it from a different perspective. Right now I have gain (some of) my composure back, and I understand what I really want is for none of this to happen. I want his love that's only for me. I want the beautiful love that I have for him. Or, at the very least, for the love to not be thrown out so casually and so mercilessly.

I can't have it, though. Even if I can travel through time, I won't have it back. Both he and I only acted true to our personality and even the current outcome, devastating as it is for us, is probably still the best and the kindest. It doesn't matter how wonderful or how strong one's love is, if it doesn't complement the other person it still can't and wont work. All that is left for me is to properly weep and grieved for the killed love, the tears and sadness that I have refuse to acknowledge for the past 12 months. 

I have wore my pride as an armor to protect the weak woman inside. Now that the woman is strong enough, it is time to put the armor aside and let me gathered the remains of my love. It is time to laid her to rest and let her nourish the soil of my soul. Love, like energy, can not be destroyed. It can change into different forms or stay inert until the right time comes, but it can never be destroyed. I loved him, and it's ok to say it out loud. It is okay to curl in a fetal position on my bed and cry myself to sleep over it. 10 more days to go. It's ok. It's ok.