First&Only

ONE

Letting Go

As I look around the room, it occurs to me that existing in my own life is going to require some changes. Echoes of the text messages and conversations and courtroom statements scroll through my mind, and I begin to remove pictures from frames and photo collections from walls. I shift other pictures in to focus on the shelving. I take down memories that have been a part of my life on a daily basis for 30 years. Pieces of my story ripped from the walls of my life. At first, it’s awful. I cry and ache and wish things could be of another time. A time when I don’t have to say that I’m letting go.

Then, I’m lit on fire with anger. At what point did I stop mattering in my own life? At what point did I have to let go of who I was and what I wanted and what I needed? Why did I put their needs in front of my own? At what point did I choose to hurt myself by loving them? And the anger turns toward them, as I take their picture out of frames. “I shouldn’t have picked you over everything! You don’t deserve the sacrifice! The time! You don’t care about me at all! Did you ever?” I yell as I throw the blessed memories into boxes, going room to room, wall to wall searching for any sign of a life that destroyed me so I can now destroy it.

Once the reminders of a life, a love, a relationship, an investment of my entire soul, are in a box in the closet, I feel like I can breathe again. It is 3:30 AM and I sense I have a space in the world once more, where I am safe from memories and heartache. And then I remember: I have to be at work in a few short hours. There is no place for the brokenness I am living in the world outside of this home. I climb into bed, clinging to my sweet dog and sweet memories, as I give in to a fretful 3 hours of sleep.

The next morning is a slap. Slap of cold fear as I try to move into a life without them. A life with less meaning than yesterday. A life without the good that came with the poison. But I do it. And it will get easier each day. I’m sure of this – I’ve lived loss and pain before and although it left a mark, it didn’t defeat joy.

The slap is also a reality of my part in the damage. And it is time to own my choices that lead me here. To remember who I am and I am accountable. I am taking the life I want out to work with me. And somehow, I will learn to bring it home with me, too, and let it spill over into the holes created when I finally, way-too-late, let go.