The Ashes

The night that I got the call that you were gone from my life…..

I watched the dreams I had for our future shatter in my hands. The pieces drifted to the ground.

My mind screamed in agony and it was like a fire in my heart erupted. All of those pieces ignited around me and my world went up in smoke and flames.

To save myself, I partitioned my pain. I locked it in a box and shoved it as far inside of my heart that I could.

Then all that was left was the ashes of what had been my life.

That’s how I lived every day. That’s how I get by. That’s how I am able to “handle the situation so well.”

Whenever some of the pain manages to find its way through the key hole. I turn up my music just a little bit louder, to help drown out the sound of my tears.

I withdrawal from every one and I write it out.

This is my way of talking about it. This is my way to say out loud that something inside of me is broken and doing this helps to set that pain free.

This is my safe space to say…

I’m a lost cause. Don’t waste your time on me. I’m so damaged beyond repair. Life has shattered my hopes and my dreams.

I tried to tell Rico that in the beginning when I realized that he had feelings for me. To let him down easy.

I told him that I didn’t want to hurt him, or give him hope for something that I wasn’t sure I could do anymore.

That I couldn’t be who he needed me to be.

His reply to that was:

I’m what I need to be. I try to learn, try to love and try to be better than I am. I understand that I will never be perfect but I can strive for it. I’m what you need me to be. I’m loving, understanding and compassionate. I will listen and learn. I will be by your side no matter the situation. I am the me that will hold your hand when your scared, angry, or confused. I am the one that hopes for the chance to prove he can be what you need in life. What I am is incomplete but hoping to be complete tomorrow.

He told me that it’s never too late to start over and that I had forgotten that what could be, never ends.

That he wanted all of me that I was able to give him. Even if it was only a piece.

Half of my heart would be enough for him.

Being with him and moving forward together is helping me. It’s forcing me to break down my barriers and confront all my fears.

Today. I donated about 90% of Franco’s clothes that was still hanging in his side of the closet. It was not easy. Each shirt, has memories and pictures associated with it.

I just had to shove them in a bag and keep repeating out loud “it’s just a shirt, he wouldn’t want to you to keep them.”

It’s a huge deal. I have purposely not moved or touched a lot of his clothes. He placed them there.

I still had our clothes separated into sides of the closet.

It’s progress towards healing.

To letting just a little of that pain out. To sit with it, let it caress me, knowing that it’s sharp edge will cut me and leave me dripping pain.

To taking a deep breath in and breathing that pain out. Feeling just a bit lighter.

I haven’t been able to take down Franco’s photo wall yet or his memorial pieces.

That’s just too big to climb. So I’ll just take smaller steps and go the long way around.

Eventually I’ll reach the top of this mountain of pain and I’ll be able to look down at everything I went through.

To be able to see the beautiful life that came from the ashes.