Day one: my broken heart
- I sense the chilled March evening air creeping in as the sun goes down. My toes, forearms, and fingertips become cold from the draft.
- I feel my heartbeat in the pit of my stomach as I think about divorcing my husband of almost fifteen years.
- I hear my son’s jovial man-sized voice (that doesn’t sound so little anymore) echoing down the hall as he plays online games with his friends.
- I sense my heavy aching tired and dry eyes from crying my eyes out earlier today. I see the rain begin to fall outside through my big front window and hear the rush-hour traffic whizzing by spitting up water from their wet tires.
- I taste the plethora of vitamins I just swallowed to start taking better care of myself.
- I smell my hot Moroccan Mint tea sitting beside me and ten years of warm memories in this house with my perfect family.
- I smell the new powdery packages of Pampers diapers that filled my daughter’s room at one time.
- I smell the love I made to my husband in every other place in this house.
- I smell ten years of the holidays wafting around the corner. I smell pine, pumpkin, and the turkey, stuffed with apples and onions, roasting in the oven.
I am sad. Still. And numb. I’m tired, enraged, and hungry. I feel empowered and nauseous. I’m scared and cold. I feel low and high, and like I’m losing my damn mind.
Day two: more broken hearts
I was lying all the times before when I talked about that day being the worst of my life.
Today was that day.
Today I told my ten-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter that their dad and I were not going to be together anymore. I saw their hearts break in slow motion as they hung their heads in despair and tears rolled down their sweet faces.
Today was so terrible I’m beginning to wonder if it was the right thing to do.
How could something that hurts my children so much possibly be the best thing to do? How could I be confident in making a decision that obliterated their beautiful little spirits in a mere instant?
What hurts the most is that I knew I had to do it.
Today broke me in two. And then those two pieces broke into another million pieces and shattered onto the floor.
I’ve backed off quite a bit from Medium to gather my thoughts and get my shit together. But on top of my emotional turmoil and everything else going on in the world, not writing about it is pretty damn painful for me right now.
This article may be the last I write for a while. (at least until the dust settles) But I want to go out with a bang and write through my pain. One last thing that struck a chord with me that I’d like to pass on:
Be gentle with yourself.
Be gentle with yourself.
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Previously Published on Medium
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