On The Nature of Heartbreak

Ah. The "D" word. No, not that one. The other one. Divorce. Oh it hurts my soul just to write it. Each letter is slowly, deliberately, painfully typed. Maybe if I take my time, if I avoid saying it or writing it in it's entirety---maybe, just maybe, it won't have to be true. Or, at the very least, I will buy myself a few more delicious seconds of denial. I still spin my imaginary band around my finger (now permanently deformed from wearing a ring through four pregnancies and 18 years of weight gain). I still check the "Mrs." title box. I still refer to him as my husband. Everything has changed on the surface.  But in my heart, absolutely nothing has changed.

 Eighteen years. Just shy of half my life. I was nineteen when we met. I saw him across a crowded room and fell instantly in love, just as Hollywood would have written it. We talked about marriage before our first official date. We both knew. Why wait? Being apart was torture. So we married and it was absolute bliss. I often told him that ours was the kind of love that people wrote songs about. We were a living, breathing ballad, the two of us. It was magical and beautiful and everything my soul ever wanted. 

 Then, all of a sudden, it wasn't. The love was still there. My heart still swelled every time he came into the room, just as it did when I was a giddy teenager. No, I take that back. It was even sweeter than when we were newly in love because my feelings had been refined by nearly two decades of working and growing and loving together. The giddy infatuation had matured into a deep, unconditional adoration. I knew everything about him. And I loved him completely. And he returned that love. But it wasn't enough to bind our rapidly diverging needs and wants together. We clung to each other desperately, until we finally admitted defeat. It was because of the genuine love for each other that we realized we had to let go. There was no other way to heal or be whole.

 And so, here I am. There are days that I wish so desperately I didn't love him. Wouldn't that be so much easier? Why couldn't I find comfort in anger? Isn't that what divorce is supposed to be like? The cliched tossing of clothes into the street from your balcony or posting vile comments on Facebook about how you're so much better on your own. That's what divorce should be. Not this horrible ache in my heart. I love him. I look in his eyes and feel. Oh how I feel. I see in his eyes our history. Births, deaths, victories, defeats, dreams, laughter, softness, comfort, understanding, acceptance, joy, pain---love. Real love. And no matter how many pro and con lists I make, no matter how logically I explain the need to separate, my heart refuses to listen. It still sings our ballad at full volume. And where that song once brought happiness, it now brings pain. My body hurts. It hurts with loneliness and disappointment. With longing and despair. And I don't know how to salve it because my spot in the universe is gone.

 So, I am doing the only thing I know how to do. I will write. I will give my feelings words to live through instead of carrying them around like wounds. I will allow my hurt to scream across a page so that it can, hopefully, settle into peace. And maybe, someday in the future, I'll be able to replace that pain with gratitude.