Gone for Me…?

I’m sitting here, broken horribly and painfully broken and despite all the support systems I’ve had around me, especially over the past year, I just don’t feel like I’m coming out the other side. I haven’t been honest with anyone. No one knows how I truly feel right now.

 

I am in love, and I’ve always been in love with Alex. And, of course, I want this to work out. I always have. But there’s so much pain, so much hurt, and a lot of it was caused by me. I just can’t trust that Alex has good intentions anymore, because at the end of the day, why would he? I wouldn’t if the roles were reversed. He was my everything, but I’m so shrouded in my own depression that I can’t even admit that to myself. I’ve lost the ability to see the positives in my life.

 

I started a brand-new career in a field I love. I’ve met some incredible people, become so much closer to my staple friends and travelled all year with Louise since our separation in 2018. All that in place and still I just sit and drink, alone, listening to such sad music, because admit it or not, I need Alex.

 

He was the other half of me. He was the one.

 

Does that mean I get him?

 

Of course not. Life isn’t that simple. But does it mean I should fight for him? Unfortunately, I can’t answer that a blackness, like no other, controls most of what I do right now.

 

If we don’t end up with the one person we truly believe is our missing piece, then who do we end up with? Do we have anyone at all?

 

I had so many ups and downs with Alex, yet I’d still rather be in that place again than the place I am now. I guess it really is better to be miserable with someone than miserable without them. Misery wasn’t all we had either. Sure, we fought and we fought hard escalating each time to places people don’t usually come back from. But every time we did, why was that?

 

Me. It was me. Every time the two of us fought, I held it together. I tethered both our hands and refused to let go. I fought hard enough for Alex and myself to make sure we didn’t part. Sorry, this time, I just couldn’t do it. I tried and god damn right I should have but he didn’t meet me halfway. Was that his fault? Probably a bit of both. He holds so much resentment resentment I gave him.

 

You found a man. The man. But did you hold him too tight? Is that what caused this? It would have been dumb to lose him, but dumber still to throw him away, as I seem to have done.

 

I thrust “me” upon him. Moved into his home. Forced him into proposing… such a rush to start the rest of my life with this man that I suffocated him. I suffocated him.

 

I stole the time from both of us. We neglected to really get to know each other, to understand what we both required and needed from the relationship and from each other.

 

Alex shut down my emotions, not realizing how fundamentally this would affect me. Emotions I had refused to show anyone before. It had such a monumental impact on my life.

 

But Alex was logical, which meant he needed to talk things through logically something I didn’t allow him the kindness of doing.

 

I set him up to fail.

 

Alex didn’t know how emotional I was not until he’d jumped headfirst in, all because I didn’t allow him to know. I just shut down. And I know, in part, that was because he forced me to rebuild parts of my wall. But come on, Theo. You work in communications.

 

I’d get upset about him not showing affection in public, but ask anyone: I made everyone around me believe I hated this. How was he to know? Why did I try to act cold? I wasn’t cold. In fact, if anything, I was the complete opposite my heart was on my sleeve, not just on my sleeve but hanging off a stray thread, begging to be intertwined with something, someone. I would’ve loved it if he held my hand on the train or kissed me in Waitrose, but I just couldn’t let him back in.

 

I stopped putting him on my social media. And why? Not because of him, but because I wanted someone else. Not anyone else I wanted the Alex I had met two years before, the Alex I trusted, the Alex who made me feel instantly safe and secure. The Alex I was, in part, responsible for changing.

 

I just wanted him to come back, but he didn’t come back. Not until he was gone.

 

Gone, at least, for me.