Numb

My grief is real. It’s bone deep. My heart is shattered into a million pieces and each time I think I am starting to heal, the scar tears wide open again. It can be a random text from her brother telling me that he loves me, or her mysteriously knowing that I am on a (requisite) date and texting in the middle of it, for no apparent reason. It is the sound of her mom’s voice and knowing that, in time, I will be gone from their lives, replaced by someone new in hers.

I think I have this notion that it should be different or the grief should not be here, still so real. Or that I am not allowed to grieve anymore because she doesn’t. I should be better by now. How do you grieve a baby or a marriage or a life that was never real? It’s not like the dream was real life. And yet here I am, missing work today, crying for the third time this week for a baby that isn’t real; missing dreams that were thrown out with the trash over eight months ago.

I don’t care about what the future holds in the way of romance. Whatever bullshit comments you want to leave telling me that time heals all wounds or that I will find someone. I just don’t care about all that. I care about what is lost. A whole life planned. That is what I lost.

I am coming up on the wedding date we planned. A wedding. Because I thought she loved me like I love her. It wasn’t true; I was delusional and too trusting. The wedding was supposed to be in Minnesota with the family who loved me from the start, unlike my own, who chooses when they feel like sharing love. We picked the date very specifically. Even my biological family was very excited. They love her too. She helped them love me again. Instead, I’ll be running away.

I am so numb so often. I am a robot on good days, void of most feeling. Those are the days I like. I have been called broken, emotionally unavailable, and, once even, cold. I just don’t care. I prefer to be closed off from the world. I wear that smile on my face for eight working hours a day because I don’t want the questions. I barely even feel my physical body anymore; I am that checked out.

Mind you it’s not the loss of her I am lamenting. She and I have a soul connection that I cannot seem to break. She will never be lost from me. It’s the hope she instilled. The safety and security. The dreams. All that, she took. Yeah, yeah, “Take it back”, I hear you saying. I am independent. I do not need her to take care of me, but parts of me are gone. Those parts. So, if time heals, she sucks at it. She’s a slow bitch.