Dear Heart,

You held this hurt for so long, months and months.

Why? What good will it do to bottle the pain?

Except it hasn’t been bottled. It has been poured out over days and nights and weeks, seemingly without end.

“Let it hurt and let it go.” 

Easier said than done. I’ve let it hurt, longer than I would have wanted and it continues to dig and feast on the goodness in my soul. The pain has become a poison, a grief unceasing. It consumes my waking thoughts and corrupts my sleep. The nightmares come regularly now.

It haunts every interaction. Will he be there? Will someone ask about him? Will I have to don the mask I’ve worn as often as I draw breath?

I am alright. I’ve moved on. I am healed.

All. Lies.

I am far from alright. The more I try to understand, the more I try to heal, the more desperate I am to move on, the deeper it digs, with me at the bottom of the pit. Something unearths the ground beneath my feet and I sink lower into the dirt.

What has he done to me? Why do I give him this power over me?

Almost seven months after the end of the relationship, and still it eats away at me. Why can’t I let go? What is stopping me from finding happiness within myself? 

I have written him letters, letters he will never read. Letters for me to say all the things I wished I had said, knowing the things I wish I knew then. Letters that pour every ounce of love and care and pain and grief and sorrow and confusion and the occasional snarl of anger from my bones.

The most poisonous piece in this process has been the stuck bit. Stuck on the cruelty of why, a close and acerbic relation to the what if. While the what if can be bittersweet, the why is only bitter. 

Why did he lie? Why did he put me through the same ordeal twice? Why ask things of me he couldn’t deliver himself? Why did he offer me the illusion of choice when really he had decided it all along? Why did he act selfishly? Why enter a relationship knowing how it would end, knowing he was why it would end? Why entertain the distinct possibility of a future when he knew it could not come to fruition? Why bare your heart only to take it back? Why offer it when it wasn’t yours to give?

All questions I wish I had answers to. None of which I can ask him. All of which I need to let go.

I will never know all the answers. I will likely never understand the why. 

When recovering from a relationship shadowed with a mental health disorder (e.g. addiction, narcissism, etc.), the why will never make sense. That person cannot think and act logically and when the partner (or ex-partner) tries to logic their way into understanding in search of closure, the puzzle pieces don’t fit. They simply cannot; they were not formed in reality.

When an individual cannot find the answers exteriorly, the natural conclusion becomes an interior one. I must be the problem. It’s my fault. I’m undesirable. I am a bad partner. I led them to [insert action here]. As true as these suppositions might feel at times, it is crucial not to get ensnared by the lie.

So where do I go from here? How do I move on from a situation to which I will never have closure? 

Well, closure might look a little different than how you first imagined. Our first step? Release the crusade for the why; it does not exist in the logical realm. It can never bring you peace. Accept that it did happen and what did happen is not a reflection of who you are. Your worth is not dictated by how you are treated. Outside circumstance and exterior conditions cannot lessen or heighten your value. Your worth is intrinsic to your very being. 

Whether you are treated as refuse or royalty, chattel or chairman, you are still worth more than every coin, jewel, or precious metal on this earth. You deserve a love that shakes the heavens. Your value is incalculable. Immeasurable. Inconceivable. 

Your loving Heartsmith

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