Fallen Leaf

Like a fallen leaf,
tuck me between the pages and
hide me away.
Here I can dry out, become something different.
Break apart, crumble to pieces, and
one day,
be reborn.

An Entire Person

I keep thinking to myself, it should be easier to not miss him after all this. But I also keep thinking, it's just not that simple. 

Today it occurred to me: this is the loss of an entire person from my life. There is no one else that I talk to every day. I suddenly lost regular frequency of physical touch which has a huge effect on mental, emotional, and physical well-being. As an extrovert, I was thrown into truly living alone for the first time in a decade – after having someone close in my life every day. There are days I go without seeing another soul, where I feel pain because my being is not witnessed by another human. 

When I feel a bit pathetic for longing for something that became so unhealthy, I use my training to remind myself that my body and emotional brain (bonding/attachment centers) are struggling with this adjustment as much as my logical mind struggles to make sense of it. I was a goner. Sold out on him being my person and continuing to share a life together. That is something that most people must not be thinking about when they say whatever it is they might say about how I should feel; what it's like to lose someone entirely and abruptly from your life.

And I've been trying to tell myself how I should feel, too. Trying to push past the weighty and hollowing sadness, but that doesn't work. I have to wade around in the confusion and the pain for however long until stepping out feels possible. Yes: feels. Because no matter what I try to tell myself, I wake up and my chest hurts, signaling that I am sad today. My breaths are a little short. Oh! I feel lonely. I have succeeded to avoid these feelings most of this week, but I can't avoid them fully. 

This kind of end is like a haunting. There's nothing that can be done to relieve it, it just is until it will not be some day. I do not believe time heals all wounds – that's how I got in this mess. Time allows some healing to occur so that the pain decreases, however, some wounds never fully stop hurting. Healing from the loss of someone who was incredibly close to your heart and in your daily life before disappearing is an arduous process. It requires presence to the pain. And the thing about time is, it must be allowed to pass, yes, but it also must be endured. There's no avoiding that either. It isn't simple as a trite phrase implies. 

Healing from the loss of a love so dear is long and slow, and painful as hell.