365 days ago

…something was wrong but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

…I was living in denial with a fake smile plastered to my face.

…misery ate away at me, bad thoughts pushing their way into my brain.

…we laid in bed together, unsure of the silence between us.

…he broke my heart with five words: “This isn’t going to work.”

…I laid in bed crying uncontrollably, desperately clinging to dreams as they vanished into thin air.

…our relationship ended.

What a difference a year makes.  When I look back on exactly one year ago today, I almost can’t believe the changes that have taken place.  On March 13, 2007, my entire world was shattered when B made a decision I never wished for — he ended our relationship.  He was unhappy and stressed out, and things between the two of us were not good.  I carried on, trying desperately to make him happy, to make him see that our relationship was worth believing in.  I was fooling myself.  I was forgetting something.

I had forgotten that sometimes everything has to fall apart before it can be put back together. 

The months of March and April, 2007, were miserable for me.  I missed B, even though I still saw him every day.  Living together, yet apart, was difficult.  I slept in what was once our bed and he slept on the couch.  He spent weekends away with his family, and I spent weekends with my friends.  He said that he didn’t know if he had any faith left, that things had gotten too hard.  He didn’t know if he could go on.  I soldiered on, trying to take my mind off of it, unsuccessfully.  I went on a four week bender, drinking heavily to self-medicate my emotional pain.  I stopped calling him, stopped hugging him, stopped talking to him.  But when we were alone, which was rare, I found myself reaching out, selfishly, stubbornly, trying to hold on to something that didn’t want me anymore.  I was angry at myself.  I was pathetic.  And then, I snapped out of it.  I woke up one day and thought “fuck it.”  So I put on the best mask I could muster, one of complete indifference, and faced the world.  And just like that, my prayers were finally heard. 

It was late in April when it finally came back together.  It took several unforeseen, random circumstances to bring this relationship back together.  It was his asking, just as it was his undoing, that sealed the deal.  For all along, I’d known the truth — he just had to figure it out himself. 

And now, a year later, things are completely different.  Our “house” is now a “home.”  There is a safe haven for us both to escape to in each other’s arms.  Our relationship is now based on mutual respect and friendship, instead of just passion and emotion.  We learned that you have to have all those pieces to make it work.  We’d been together a long time, and we had stopped appreciating each other.  It’s hard to explain…it’s almost as if the undoing of it all is what made the bitterness fade away.  It was as if someone had literally wiped our slate clean and said “please, start fresh with each other.” 

One night, a few months after we began again, as we lay sleeping in our bed, he woke me up at 3 a.m.  He said to me, “You are my best friend, but I want you to be my wife.”  Finally, all those years of wishing and praying were coming true.  But what I felt was not relief or appreciation — I just felt calm.  Like I could finally rest, knowing that my world was now on solid ground.  All my life I’d lived in fear of being abandoned by those who I love.  My mom, my dad, my brother.  I didn’t want to add B to the list of those who had gone from my life.  That night I realized that he had never really left.  I was always in his heart, where he carried me.  We fell apart to come back together.

March 13, 2007 seems like a lifetime ago.  We’ve come so far since then.  As B says, “Our relationship is in a different place now, from a year ago.  We’re standing on solid ground.”

I couldn’t agree more.