Final Ceremonies

I’m not sure how, but this hurts more than I thought I would. I told myself I wouldn’t blog until later today so I wouldn’t be too emotional, but I have to write. It’s the first place I went.

Chad came and got his stuff. I helped him load it in the back of his borrowed car. Now all the boxes that had his name on them are gone, as is the clothes rack that has been waiting patiently for his clothes to return. All packed up and loaded away. He stood there hugging me so tightly beside his car, so lovingly, before he left—knowing I was hurting so badly. I was the one to pull away from him finally. Then I ran back in the house and he drove away, again, just like sixteen weeks ago today. He obviously loves me (obviously not in love with me, but loves me) and is obviously happy in this new life of his. I can’t grasp it. How did he loose the love he had for me, how did he quit loving the life we were building? Why can’t I stop loving him, quit loving the life we had? Why can’t I let go of the hope that he might come back one day when I know he never will?

When he left, I went a little manic. I threw away all the food and canned stuff he had had here, and I took some of his stuff out in the yard and buried it. I knew I was going to do that, but I didn’t know it would hurt so badly. There was the plant he gave me when I started my new teaching job. It sat on my desk for two years and I loved it so much. On the way home from school this year, it died in the car from the heat. I have been watering it all summer trying to get to come back, moving it to different windows thinking the sun might help. When I pulled it out of the pot (I couldn’t make myself get rid of it too), there weren’t even any roots left. I also put in mints and a matchbox from dinner we’d had that he’d kept by his bedside. The two chap sticks that he always bought for us (really nice ones), were also buried, as well as the list he had written out a month or so before he left, listing all the prices of hotels and flights we could do to San Diego this summer. I also erased all the text messages where he told me how much he loved me that I had saved on my phone from him. I can’t help but hope that the symbolism of something coming up from what was buried in the ground will transpire, but I know the only thing it really represented was death. Death of the love I never thought I’d have, death of the life I never dreamed I actually get to live. Death of whatever love Chad still has for me, if any. I gave myself fully to him. More than I have ever with anyone. More than I thought I could—it was so scary. When he left, that part of me didn’t stay behind, it went with him. It will always be with him. Maybe something will grow to replace what has been torn away, but maybe not. Maybe it just stays ripped, stays gone. Constantly longing for arms that will no longer hold me, lips that will no longer kiss me, a man that I can never call my own or belong to again, a life that was better than I ever dreamed that is no longer possible.