The Long Road Behind Me

This time two years ago was a dark time for me. The summer before I moved to Atlanta for physical therapy school. It’s not something I have opened up to a lot of people about. It’s deeply personal and it’s hard to share. Sometimes I feel ashamed that I wasn’t stronger. What was happening and the mistakes I made during that time. All the sad songs I listened to, trying to capture the extent of my heartbreak – the lonely nights alone, just my cat and I, spent in a big, empty apartment with hardly any furniture. I would leave the TV on all the time just so I didn’t have to live in silence.

I went to work at the local children’s gymnastics facility down the street. I swam occasionally. I worked out. I cooked quinoa and chicken. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. And at night – I’d suffer. Those of you who know me close, knew that during my time in Georgia, I’d been in the same relationship – the one that had ended the February of that year. Through those long, lonely summer nights, I suffered as I struggled with letting go of a relationship that I knew I needed to let go of, but didn’t know how.

One night in particular comes back to me – it was one of the worst that summer. Against my better judgement, I went to see my ex. I knew that I shouldn’t – every time I did, I felt in my heart and stomach a pit of despair and darkness. But I didn’t know what else to do. I hurt so incredibly badly. And the alternative – the scary thought of being alone – sometimes, it seemed like that was worse… I couldn’t get out of the cycle. I couldn’t bring myself to let go completely. Breaking up was one step – saying goodbye forever was another. It was that night that he confronted me about talking to other people. I was young, I was newly single – and I was trying to mask my heartbreak by distracting myself and moving on. I was in a terrible place, and seeing my ex during that time only made it exponentially worse. I hadn’t known it, but my ex was capable of doing something called “cloning” my phone – he was able to see all of the messages I received from other people. He was even able to see if anyone came over to my apartment based on IP addresses pinging my wifi from their phones, since he had helped set the wifi up. And it was bad. He confronted me about it – and I didn’t have anything good to say. How could I explain the heartbreak I felt? How utterly terrifying it was to face the thought of truly letting go of my first and only love, forever, and facing a scary new world alone? But knowing that that relationship was terrible and poisonous to both of us – and so at the same time I couldn’t help but try and move on? Trying to explain that I felt both of those at the same time seemed impossibly shallow to me, but it was much more complex than that. Maybe you’ve been in a similar situation.

A confrontation that night turned into raised voices, and raised voices turned into complete screaming. I don’t even remember exactly what was said, but I remember that – the harsh, grating, scary screaming.  His anger. The feeling of being paralyzed by helplessness. I tried to leave – I wasn’t allowed to. He took my phone and locked me in a completely pitch black room and wouldn’t let me go. I cried and cried desperately. I was so desperate to get out that I literally broke the old wood door keeping me in – which only made him yell worse. I ran out the door and down the street. He followed. “You can’t leave,” he said, threatening me. Tears poured down my face. I knew he wouldn’t let me leave – I sat down on the curb in the dark of the night and cried. In an effort to get him to let me go, I let him drive me to the house of this guy I had been on a few dates with – and he forced me to walk to his door while he knocked on it and yelled that I didn’t care about him. I finally got the chance to go home, then – I’d changed my locks so that he couldn’t get in anymore, and I tried to pretend the notes on my car when I went to random places didn’t bother me, and tried to pretend that I didn’t feel like this was an endlessly hopeless situation that I would struggle with forever. I tried to pretend that I wasn’t worried that I would be stalked around town. That I couldn’t even invite people over for worry that he would find out. I just wanted to close my eyes and forget everything. I wanted to be free. But I didn’t know how I could get there.

I don’t have a word for what that summer was like. Abuse? I don’t know. The thing about that word is, at least in my case, I didn’t think about it that way as it was happening to me. I just thought, “I deserve this. I’m an awful person – what I’ve done, by breaking someone’s heart – was awful, and these are the consequences I have to live with. This is my burden to bear. This is a hell I don’t know how to escape from, but it will be ok. I’ll be ok. He’s justified in being angry and emotional. He’s hurt too.”

Atlanta was a scary place, but it was a beacon of hope to me that summer, compared to Macon where I spent those last few months. Atlanta was a chance to be free. If I could just make it through that summer… that horrible, horrible summer – THAT was my chance to leave this hell behind. And the day I moved, oh thank god, I was so ready. I was ready for my new life. It turns out it wasn’t as easy as that, of course – my past still followed me. In fact, my ex followed me – he moved to Atlanta shortly after. I was careful to conceal my address, but somehow, he found my new address, and he’d leave notes for me there, too. Sometimes he’d wait for me to come back home. One night, I had to stay at my friend’s house, for fear of him confronting me if I went home.

One morning, it must have been 3 am – I got repeated phone calls from his new number. I hadn’t blocked it yet. Finally, he sent me a message saying there was something for me downstairs. School was at 8 am in the morning, and I was exhausted. I went downstairs, though. There were big windows that my roommate liked to leave the blinds open to that faced the street – I remember literally crawling down them, afraid to walk up tall, worried me might see me if he was still there. I opened the door, and there was a plastic bag. In it was a box – a box I had painted for him long ago for his birthday, filled with all the cards and letters I’d ever written. And one last letter from him – the last I ever received. And I wept, and wept, and wept. I was so tired, and so hurt, and so heartbroken from these last few months. I felt like I was dragging a body, the body of what my life used to be - behind me wherever I want – that’s how big the burden felt to me. I lived in fear, and heartbreak, and darkness, and no one could get me out of it. This was my burden to bear. This was my loneliness. My past. I filled journals with my hurt that the memories and that the lack of privacy and the stalking and the notes left me. His constant ability to find ways to leave my messages and get in touch with me and never leave me alone or let me forget. 

In fact, it wasn’t until the week before I met Kris, that things finally ended – for good. That I finally cut all ties with that dark piece of my past. I had still been trying to come to terms with the fact that even though I had moved on and I was seeing other people, that it didn’t make me forget my hurt – and I felt as though I constantly lived in a state of questioning if my decisions over the last year had been the right ones, or if I would be doomed to date people under a state of heartbreak that shadowed any feelings I felt forever. Just comeuppance for my bad deeds, perhaps. I remember the last time I ever saw him – I went to a bar with one of my friends, and there he was, bartending – and he brushed past me. I had a long cry that night… and then I let it go. I blocked every form of communication I could possibly find for him to talk to me to. I finally felt ready. And then I met Kris 3 days later. And for the first time ever – I finally, truly let go. I let go of the heartbreak and the hurt. I told Kris everything, and this burden was lifted from me. For the first time, I could think back on all of those memories – and they didn’t hurt anymore.

I felt peace. And funny enough, that’s one of the many reasons how I knew that Kris was the man that I would marry. Kris is kind, he’s hysterically funny, and he makes the best life partner and partner in crime I could ever ask for. He shares my longing for adventure and my passionate, determined spirit. And loving him – it’s just like one of my favourite poems, which goes like this:

“She asked ‘you are in love, what does love look like’,

To which I replied, ’like everything I’ve ever lost come back to me.”

Atlanta’s symbol is the phoenix, and the phoenix perfectly captures my life here. Out of ashes, my life was reborn and remade. I was always whole before I met Kris, but Kris gave me something more than that. He filled my whole self with joy, and all the things I’d lost in those dark pieces of my past – the loss I felt – was replaced my peace, replaced by a feeling of wholeness. He brings me closer to God and he taught me to let go of that hurt. He is the man that makes me feel as though everything I’ve ever lost and that I used to mourn every day and night before I cried myself to sleep – has come back to me. Newer, brighter and more perfect than ever before.

And in just less than 5 days, I’m lucky enough to get to marry him. If that isn’t a happy beginning to a love story, I don’t know what is.