I’m going to disappoint you, but you knew that already. I could feel your fear when you left for work this morning. I don’t hear the door close after we say our goodbyes, so I’m not that surprised to find your hazel eyes penetrating my subconscious in the bathroom mirror when I look up after drying off my face. You’re reading my thoughts, but you can’t find the words - or maybe the courage? - to say what I need to hear. Instead, you go for the one thing that’s always been too easy for us. The thing that, maybe above all else, keeps us both coming back. You grab my hips and turn me slowly, until my back is straight up against the wall. You take my face in your hands, and you bring your freckled lips down to mine, kissing me slowly at first, but then picking up in intensity as you lift me up off the ground, my legs sliding effortlessly around your waist. We only stay like this for a minute - you do, after all, have to get to your job. You kiss my hair and whisper I love you in my ear, before leaving the bathroom without turning back. This time, I do hear the front door close.
I sit on the couch - our couch, the first piece of furniture that we ever bought together - and start writing you a letter.
I’m sorry. I’m saying I’m sorry now so that you’ll know I started this journey feeling this way, and that it wasn’t some grand realization I came to later. I will regret this every day. You are my soul, but my heart is broken. And that’s something I need to heal on my own.
I stop. I stop because the noise starts. Death is not quiet. It is loud and agonizing and desperate and tinged with blue fluorescent lighting. I hear my own crying. I hear the ambulance driving away. I hear the silence of the waiting room. I hear my heartbeat reach an unnatural number of beats per minute after He is pronounced dead. I hear the phone calls to shocked family and friends. And then I close my eyes, let it wash away, and wait for the night to come back to me again.
I don’t want that night. I want to run away.
My restlessness in life has become invasive, and we both know it’s taking its toll on us. I want to quit my job, unload our apartment, travel the world with you by side. You want those things for me, but you don’t want them at the expense of your job. You don’t want to quit. You don’t want to pursue the nomadic lifestyle that is so adamantly calling out to me. You think I’m having a quarter life crisis. I don’t disagree. I’m grieving. My desire to runaway is undoubtedly rooted in my hurt and my want to not adjust to what people are ignorantly calling “our new normal.” But the problem is, my dreams of quitting my job and traveling the world were there long before my He died. Now, they’re just tinged with urgency. Desperation. Pervading my bloodstream with a need to be fulfilled almost as much as the act of breathing.
I start to cry. I need to go. I love you more than anything, but I need to fix myself.
But I won’t. You don’t leave the man who lets you fall apart in his arms every night. You stay.
You get in your car. You drive to work.
And I do.
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