Grief

Here's something I wrote years ago, about a break-up. It's remarkably and brutally honest:

There is something so self-indulgent in letting go of grief. I have found myself sobbing in recent weeks, and each time the grief is genuine (although I can’t quite work out why I’m so upset about this particular break-up), but when I start to cry, I listen to myself and start to experiment with the sounds I am making. I have never wept as I have recently, and the experience is as fascinating as the break-down of the relationship has been crushing. I don’t want to trivialise my poor little broken heart, wrenched from my sleeve and booted all over the place, but I’ve never experienced grief in this way. I have lost multiple members of my close-knit extended family in a short space of time when other mini-disasters were occurring around me, and whilst I certainly cried, it’s never been this awful. When I finally plucked up the courage to leave my then love-of-my-life after five years together, I was devastated (and subsequently went on a bit of a self-destructive bender). Leaving my (only) other live-in partner after 2 years of trying so hard to fix what couldn’t be meant tears, but that was relief mixed with pain, and a sense of failure at not being able to help someone who refused any offer.

This is genuine grief and it has snuck up on me. I’ve experienced gut-wrenching emotional pain that has left me doubled-over when I walk out of my bedroom, knowing he’ll never set foot in there again. Putting the last glass he drank out of in the dishwasher reduces me to emitting a loud, self-indulgent moan. And throwing his toothbrush in the bin took me weeks, just in case, despite all the signs to the contrary.

I think what has hurt me is the loss of optimism. I have now been lied to by men in every cliched way possible. Or at least I think so at the moment. If there is one thing I have always had, it’s optimism. After each dumb, stupid break-up, I’ve always known I’ll fall in love again. Maybe I haven’t let myself go completely ever after that first heartbreak, but this time I came close (in retrospect, I know I didn’t really). But this time, I have my doubts that I can open myself up for this again. They all lie, and not in meaningless, silly little white lie ways but in soul-crushing/destroying ways. How can I even think about trusting someone again?

It’s been three months and I’m still spilling tears over it. Not over him, but over what it would have been if he hadn’t lied, and if I’d been honest to myself and to him. How can I even think about opening myself up for this again? I can’t believe I’ve lost my optimism. How do I get it back? How do I get it back? How do I get it back? I don’t want to be alone, but I can’t bare the thought of living through this again. What the .uck am I going to do with my life if I can’t be my usual, optimistic self who has managed to hook up with every cliche in the book? The serial cheater, the drunk, the one who couldn’t get himself together to be anything, and now the one who filled my head with all the right stuff, only to turn and walk away without even blinking. My usual, optimistic self keeps .ucking up.