The first month

I was twisted up, like a rag being wrung out. I leaked and leaked for days and then weeks and then a month. Tears, choking sobs, hopes, visions of what might be, and plans for the forthcoming months, it all ebbed out of me. It flowed into every corner of my life. Tearful silence at work, distraught somberness seated amongst friends, and aloof chilliness whenever something precious from our life together needed disposing.

Floods of memories poured out of me no longer cast in the amber glow of marital bliss. Now I watched these flickering moments carefully feeling for fissures. I sought for our seams trying to discern when we started to unravel. I grasped fruitlessly for the why of our split, alas we were exceptional actors, even I couldn’t see our cracks, our weak spots.

This leaking was unbearable. I’m a boxer-upper, a sorter and a tidier. My thoughts and feelings so often organized and set into a category, rarely time to sort through them. Now they spilled out into heaps one smashing against the other, dull thuds in the darkness. This was the worst of it, feeling a huddled ball of ragged nerves.

“Everything was too much for me.”

Everything was too much for me. Simple interactions would overwhelm me quickly. I grew fatigued by making the easiest decisions. If anyone showed even the slightest sign of kindness toward me, tears would spring anew.

“Nothing was enough for me.”

Nothing was enough for me. I wasn’t content alone. I couldn’t find a way to be out and feel anything other than brittle. If my nearest and dearest didn’t pour their love on me, my anxiety would sky-rocket. Fear of being abandoned again fueling my rising despair. 

Jumbled up in a pile of knots, twisting further into the gusts of sorrow, loss and heartsickness. This is how I spent the first month after I heard the words, “I’ve been falling out of love with you for the past few years.”