…..ran inexorably slowly whilst I grieved. Grieved for the loss of our future together; for the loss of the perceived certainty of tomorrow; for the loss of the plans that we had together. Life stops. Just grinds to a halt. I was banjaxed. I’d accelerated slap bang wallop into a brick wall I didn’t see until it was much too late. Now every second felt like a minute, a minute an hour and a day an eternity. I had been sucker punched in the stomach and winded badly by his leaving so quickly and so suddenly. There hadn’t been enough time to absorb it all, to ask why, really why, he was going. I wished desperately for a fast forward button to speed me away from this nightmare part of my life; to take me past the hurt, the pain, the humiliation of rejection; of having to tell family and friends that he had gone and that I had been dumped on the middle aged scrap heap of life. Somehow it was easier to pretend that he had died for I couldn’t feel such shame and betrayal if he had just died; it wouldn’t have been his fault; I couldn’t then blame him or hate him for destroying my life because he never meant to; he just died; end of story; now get on with the grieving.
I felt a fraud grieving for a lost love, but it is grief, except I knew that one day it was inevitable that our paths would cross again. That one day I would have the anguish of seeing him happy and in love with someone else; I could easily have gouged my eyes out there and then to make sure I never captured that memory to replay for the rest of my life.
In the first real thrust of passion in the early days of our relationship he had promised that he would never hurt me. “How could you have lied so?”, I asked over and over. "If I had known how bad it felt to lose you then I would never have let myself love you so much".
My friend, my lover, my mentor, my future had bolted from my life and I knew not why.
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16 comments:
well, i've been there, too, more than once.
over time, i have always been able to figure it out--i mean, why they left. but in the moment? no way.
i comforted myself with gruesome (unfulfilled) dreams of revenge.
You are right Laurie, hindsight is an exact science. If only foresight worked as well as it does then we'd never have the lows but I guess we would not enjoy the highs too and what a dull life we would have led.
My condolences, mob. You have done the right thing in getting it off your chest with such honesty, and you can only come out of it better and stronger for having done that.
You had to be strong for him. Now, be strong for yourself. Best wishes.
Never been there (touch wood)but I know what you mean about having to tell people about this kind of moment in your life. Brave you to get it out there. I have a friend who I know needs ringing if she goes quiet it usually means she needs to talk but feels too bad to pick up the phone.
SB - ah thanks me old china plate! I'm all over it now and it is good to write about it from a distance but to still remember almost every torturous moment to moment. I was traumatized for a while.
Breezy - I go very quiet too when I have problems and will not pick up the phone. I hate to bother people with my problems. I also find that because people tend to come to me to talk over their problems that they are shocked to find out that I can have them too. Some friends that I have just aren't equipped to deal with other people's problems and that is fine by me - they bring other things into my life that are special in other ways. I have a couple of really good friends that I can go to if I ever need to now. Your friend is lucky to have you as you seem to be very thoughtful.
MOB - this had us teary eyed after a couple of glasses of wine when we read it last night. Glad to hear it's from a long time ago and not happening to you now but you write as though it happened yesterday. Wit and pathos!
Thanks Mr and Mrs Fair cop! I take it when you say 'we' in your comment that your mean your wife and not that you have multiple personalites going on there?! It happened at a time in my life when I was just anoldbag and hadn't reached the menopause. I suspect he might have seen what was in store for him and legged it!
Isn't it good to get it off your chest? When you have done so, you don't have to think about it as much, or even at all, if you are lucky. I am very glad that this event was in the past, and that you were able to move on.
I can still remember the pain of my first boyfriend breaking up with me, after a relationship lasting only a couple of years. It obviously does not compare with the agony that you must have experienced. I still wonder, occasionally, how my first boyfriend's life turned out.
Ooh whether you're fifteen or fifty, that post has the power to touch a nerve. I've been 'happily' married for almost twenty years but reading this I can still remember the feelings of utter despair (and strangely 'shame') that being abandoned can throw up.
Also interesting comment to Breezy. Isn't weird how some people can assume us to be 'problem free'?
Mean Mom, I think the pain of loss of any relationship is just as intense as if it were your first that lasted only a few years or a longer one of twenty or so. Some memories or people like old boyfriends are best left in the past! They probably have beer guts and no hair by now anyway!
Lane - I suppose the shame thing comes from the school yard. Like all those times you might have been the last one chosen for the netball team - why did teachers do that?; let the children choose who they wanted in their team - kids can be wicked. We take rejection so very badly as children because we are so self centred at that stage and I think those feelings are directly linked to shame. You do get over it of course but it is so hard at the time. As for some people being there for you and others that can't be - I guess the solution for me was to have a few close ones that can and those that can't do come through in other ways in other situations.
you need the lows, MOB. not just for interest. but for seasoning. i've met people who've never suffered. they're usually very nice, but they're not.... well-rounded. you know?
Mob, You might have tipped us off that the incident you so sadly related was nine years old. I don't mean to detract from the obvious hurt which went into the writing of it, but you have to make allowances for dummies like me.
Firstly, I wrongly assumed from the start that your man had, er, departed this earth completely, and my whisky-assisted emotion only served to perpetuate the myth until I had offered my condolences in Comment and read it through again after publication, and properly, the next morning.
It gets better. I had also printed your post and taken it downstairs where I read it out to my wife, her sister and her niece, who were staying with us. The four of us were gutted for you. But not as gutted as I was the following morning when I realised my error.
Never mind, wee mob, the important thing is that you aren't in mourning after all and that, in fact, you are happily re-married these days. I am soooo relieved for you, and still love you.
Oh SB - on my inexperience as a writer new to this game, I failed to make it clear that it was a retrospective peice! I am so touched that the account moved you and your whole family by the sounds of it! That'll teach you to read posts with half a gallon of the old fighting/crying water in you! The ethos of the peice was to say to people that it was okay to feel deep grief at the ending of a love affair - the same grief that you would have felt had he died. At the time I wished that he had died because he had left me humiliated and alone by choice and not by an event that he had no control over so I was very very angry at him. Too many people do not give themselves permission to grieve at the end of a phase in their lives and I wanted to let people see that it is okay. I have experienced grief in my life as I lost both my parents a month apart two years before this event and I found it hard to differentiate the depth and loss I felt between each event.
Sorry for the confusion, and I have to say that you had me laughing my socks off at your depictation of the events as they unfolded for you! I make a pact with myself not to come near the PC when well oiled after the Friday night drinkathon - much too easy to bugger up! Hugs dear friend.
Hi MOB, you post brought back some not so pleasant memories that happened many moons ago. Your reply to Breezy was so true, when my sister went through a similar thing years later, the whole family rallied round her. Apparently they hadn't felt the need to support me as they didn't realised I was so upset when my husband of 8 months was 'bored with the marriage scenario'.
Debra just noticed your comment. How much more painful was that for you when you didn't even have the support of your family - that was cruel and unthinking of them.
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