Not Goodbye

Republished from July 7 2019

I peered off into the sky today, thinking of better times. The clouds drifted into the trees and turned them a pale green. The sound of birds faintly chirping in the background as I pull memories back and forth with reality.

It seems unreal, as if it’s a nightmare I simply cannot escape. No matter how often I pinch myself I can’t come to a better reality. How is it possible for people with such vibrant souls to be gone from this earth.

They wouldn’t want us this way, inflicting pain was never their intention. I cry out over words unspoken and moments in time that I wish stood still. I break because we couldn’t save them, nothing we could’ve done would have been enough to change what life had broken.

However, as I look off into what appears is endless earth I feel them. I see them in all things beautiful. and I hear their laughter in the wind of this uncertainty. I feel they’re at peace. No longer are they captives of this hold the world had on them all.

They can breathe without fear of broken words. They can smile knowing joy comes with each sunrise. Lastly, they can protect us from all that is wrong with this world.

To all we lost too soon.??

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You Lost Me, And Honestly It’s Your Own Fault

Lost Love

You lost me….. It’s like another version of me was screaming at you from a distance.. “How could you not see that you’re all she wanted? How could you not see her holding on with every fiber of her being to make it work?”

Because of my strength

You turned her strong, willful personality into an issue. And you couldn’t handle being challenged by her. So you buried the very traits that make her, her. And it was easier to see things your way than to try and understand her.

And when you drain out the very essence of someone until they can’t even recognize themselves anymore…that’s when the problems begin.

I wanted you to be your best

You just couldn’t get that she was the type of girl who showed her love by pushing you out of your comfort zone. She craved more from you for yourself, every dream of yours became hers and she never failed to call you out when you weren’t living up to your potential.

You wanted it to be easy

She didn’t just serve to please you and because of that, you failed to feel her real love for you. She didn’t fail to see how great this love could’ve been, how it could’ve changed the both of you for the better. Unlike you, she knew it would take work but she knew that the work would’ve been worth it. You, on the other hand, couldn’t see past instant gratification so you stopped making the effort to choose her and started to look elsewhere.

You couldn’t handle how real this could have been, but you could handle placing the blame on everything else. To you, your behavior and actions weren’t the problems it was just that you “wanted something easy, drama free.”

Your Disloyalty

And while you may still have seen yourself as the gentleman who did everything in his power to make her feel special, the reality was far from it. And the only thing that was easy about this relationship, was how easily it was for you to chip away at her until she felt nothing but her insecurities.

You covered up the emotional beatings with your own issues to the point where she was suffocating while trying to heal you. And even then, when she could barely breathe, you piled the excuses, the betrayal and the flat out bullshit on top of her as your attempt to bandage it all up.

You Were Toxic. And Cruel.

But no matter how many times you became that “gentleman” lifting her back up from it all, her heart could never fully recover. You failed to understand just how much damage was caused and so her pain turned into something you could see. Her pain turned into rage and that’s when you stopped loving her. How could you not see that her rage was because of your toxic self?

By The Time You Tried, It Was Meaningless and Too Late

This wasn’t easy or drama free, it was difficult and chaotic and she was still holding on but somehow that was too inconvenient for you to try harder. So she got off this rollercoaster and you came crashing down. You couldn’t take the fall so you decided to be the man she needed, but in the end, it wasn’t a change for her. It was for you. And it wasn’t a change at all.

It took you awhile to realize that but she learned quickly that it would always end the same way. You loved yourself too much to see the big picture and she lost herself trying to get you both to that big picture.

You Never Fought To Keep The Relationship

She may have hated herself for blindly trying to get you both to a love so out of this world, but she never saw herself as stupid. She knew you had something complicated and intense and was the biggest challenge of her life. But she also knew that it was the love that you fight for again and again because you don’t get that with just anyone.

You knew she was right because you felt it too but you decided not to fight to keep her. You knew, as insufferable as it would be to watch her leave for good, you had to because she deserved to experience this love with someone who could do the work.

But You Can Find Her And She Will Love You

And while you may think you’re a hero for saving her from you, the truth is you’re not. You are the reason why she didn’t get the love she deserved. And you are the reason the relationship failed instead of lasting a lifetime.

Because you let your toxic bullshit drag her down rather than protecting her with the love you felt.

She was strong and would have weathered any storm with you but every woman has their limit on how many battles they can fight alone. So change, choose to love her and she’ll never make you regret it.

You Will Find Love Again

Sometimes it happens. Out of no where… You just fall in love. I never thought I would love again. But I did and I’m so glad I did. Eight months ago I was in the worst position possible. My children’s father was doing anything possible to get high. DSS was called.

I went from from hiding my kids in a closet to comfortably sleeping with them in a bed. I met the love of my life 6 months ago. It was my brothers friend. He turned into my best friend. I would do absolutely anything for him.

8 months ago I was living four hours away. Trapped in a situation I never believed I would be in. Four hours away from my whole family and all my friends. I had no one besides my kids. I was living with their father but I was still all alone. I was the only one providing. I would go on grocery trips alone with three kids, doctors appointments, and I was the only one who would take them to do anything.

It just wasn’t fair to me to be with a man who did absolutely nothing. I was never physically abused but I was definitely in some emotional torture. One morning I came to the realization that he always hid his pants from from the night before tucked under the bed. So I decided to pull out his pants pockets to see what he was hiding. A big bag of white powder. It looked like glass. I did some research on the internet and sure enough he had like 300 dollars worth of methamphetamine. We got kicked out of the house we were living in and moved in with his friend. Not even three weeks later DSS was knocking on our door. I was so afraid I told all the kids to get in the closet and we pretended we were not there.

The next few days of my life I lived in pure fear. I was completely sober its not ok for my kids to get taken from me when Im doing everything in my power to make sure my kids were safe, they were always fed and taken care of. I would be devastated even spending one day away from my kids. What if they got taken away? They would be traumatized. I would be traumatized. Four days later I made the call.. I had my aunt come pick us up and I haven’t been back since. A few days later I got a call from a correctional facility, he had been locked up.

On the way back to my hometown, I was so hurt. I kept thinking how much I was going to miss him, how much my kids were going to miss him. How heart broken they were going to be to no longer have their father in their lives. I kept thinking who would ever want a single mother with three kids.

We got home, got settled and life did move on even though I didn’t think it would. One day my brother and cousin and sister in law kept trying to get me to hang on with this guy that they knew really well. I had never met him, so I kept brushing it off. I didn’t want to meet someone and fall for someone who would just leave me or feel like my kids were a burden. I was starting to feel so lonely. The kids were driving me mad. My mom agreed to keep the kids one night so I could go out for the night and relax, just take a break.

I ended up at my brothers house with my brother and sister in law and a few friends. The guy that they had been trying to get me to hang out with had texted and asked what I was up to. Everyone kept telling me to just let him come over. Of course I said no. Then started thinking, why not? Maybe nothing would ever come of it, he would be the first guy I hung out with since leaving. Who cares if nothing came of it Id be ok, but I was just so nervous After a couple glasses of wine, to chill my nerve LOL I decided to text back. I told him where I was and asked if he wanted to hang out. It took him a few minutes to respond and my heart was pounding! He responded with, “I’m on the way.” I instantly regretted telling him to come over because I was so afraid and nervous.

When he texted me and asked me for the gate code I knew this was real. I was about to hang out with someone else for the first time in 6 years. I was so overwhelmed I locked myself in the room with the cat hahah! Took me about fifteen minutes to come out that room. I was so shy and my heart was beating in over drive. He was so smiley! So cute and oh so sweet. I was sure it was a front. He asked me to ride to the gas station with him so I did and we talked. We shared our first kiss that night! I will remember that kiss for the rest of my life. He was unlike any one I had ever met. But I was still sure it was just a front.

We went on a few dates after that night. He was so much fun, so kind, the type to open the door! Never had I met a guy to open the door for me. I started to fall, and fall hard. 6 months later this guy is my best friend. He is for sure the love of my life. The way he treats my kids is absolutely amazing. He takes us places, he buys them things, I get roses and least twice a month. He would never let us go without. I watched him dance with my kids at a wedding the other day, it was absolutely breath taking.

I know there are probably plenty of single mothers out there afraid to take a chance, afraid to love again, afraid to find them selves heart broken over and over again. Please, please don’t stay bottled up in your emotions. It may not work out the first time, or the second, or the tenth, but there are good men out there, I have one. My kids didn’t deserve the lives they use to live and neither did I. We deserve the life we are living now. No more hiding in closets, no more asking why Daddy dont love us. Now we have unconditional love!

He will never know how thankful I am for him. He will never know how happy I am he walked into our lives. He will never know how much I love him. Thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you for being my best friend and the best father to our kids.