i’ve been thinking about the fleetingness of love and how we don’t abandon love even when it feels like it abandons us.
it's been over a decade and the details are fuzzy. i can't remember anything else that was said except him saying, 'i'm engaged' and i felt my heart fall into nothingness and the world seemed to spin around me. i couldn't find my footing. he looked apologetic and almost remorseful- as if it were a decision that he had to make behind my back. as if he didn't expect the responsibility to break the news to me. i remember he kissed me again. i remember knowing that the next time I saw him - if i ever saw him again - he would be married. i didn't know how to accept that. i was nineteen.
i was in my early twenties and he was the first person i ever shared a home with. this felt like a divorce. it felt bitter and the anger was palpable- it felt red and sharp. i fought tooth and nail for a place we didn't own but i had made my home. how did we get to this point? who let it get this far? was it more my fault than his? what had I gotten myself into? who was this person? who was this stranger I shared a home with? did i ever know him? did he ever know me? what did we share together? what made me lose hope? i saw his face every day but he no longer looked familiar to me. his voice became an echo of someone i used to be familiar with. the softness that radiated when i felt his presence turned into a hardness - a cruel coldness that couldn't be shook.
when our last words face to face were spoken and his house key was back in my hand, i felt strange. for the first time, standing alone in the living room that suddenly became my living room, i felt like an adult. i didn't feel like an adult while sharing a home with him. i didn't feel like an adult when we stood in the dizzying maze of showrooms at ikea - impatiently trying to pick out a dining table, a couch or a television stand. i didn't feel like an adult when we cleaned the house together on a saturday morning. i didn't feel like an adult when we argued loudly over my lack of happiness or his failure of understanding his growing selfishness late at night in the bedroom we shared.
i was alone. a single. without a significant other. i was scared of the unknown and equally scared of the future- yet, for the first time, i felt like an adult. i was 24 and the whole world felt like it could be mine and i didn’t understand why that felt so overwhelming for me.
but for the first time in a long time, i felt responsible. there was no sadness nor grief -i didn't cry. there was a relief in taking responsibility for my future happiness. my best friend at the time helped me paint the spare bedroom a bold, hideous color. an achingly putrid mauve that was a bearable shade of lavender in certain lighting. it was a color i wouldn't choose now but then, for some unexplainable reason, it felt right. it was an empty, ugly colored room but it held possibilities.
love is a funny thing. it's never as resilient as we believe it to be. we place so much hope on something so fluid. you would think we would learn by now- you would think.