The Days Following

She held my hand and looked straight into my teary eyes. I could barely look up at her. For the first time in a long time, I trusted someone new. There was something about the way she spoke to me. The way she could not let me leave without another round of words.

I suddenly felt close to her. Closeness in a way as if I needed her. Perhaps I did. I eventually looked up and so she spoke. Sternly, but quietly.

"One of the hardest things you are going to go through right now is the loss of the dream. No one, no one here at least, will tell you to stop loving him. He is the father of your children. For some reason you fell in love- probably with someone that is not even recognizable at this moment. He will always be part of your life whether you want him to be or not. Coming clean is hard. Letting go of the old dream is harder.
"Accept that someday he might get better. More importantly, accept that one day he may not. You may not. But you will get through this. There is nothing wrong with you for falling in love and falling apart. It happens to those we least expect it to. There is no profile for the victim. It is okay to still love him. But for now and maybe for always- it has to be okay to be without him.
"You look so young, so lost, so confused and so undetermined. You are doing all the right things, going through the correct motions, but your heart still is confused and that is OKAY.
"We are all here for you. People you know will be there if you talk. Others won't want to be bothered. Others will come out from places you did not know were there. It is okay to still love him. It is okay to cry for your dream, your family, your past and all the years of hurt you bottled up, belittled, and pushed under the bed".

She said these things I did not want to hear.
She made me listen.
As tears streamed down my face. My Face. I don't cry in public. I have allergies and mascara in my eye. But I don't break down in front of strangers. Or at least I never had until that day.
And she's right. I do still love him. And I don't care what anyone thinks of me. I might be scared of him. I might be terrified of us. I might despise what has been done. But I love him. I love the idea of us. The memory of who we once were.
I love the "me" that never cried and never failed- just misjudged. I miss the girl who was innocent enough to believe that enough had already happened in her life.

Silly girl. Don't you know what they say?

Life begins at Thirty.