They are still asking about you. It’s funny because it’s been five years already since you left me. They assume that I moved on a long time ago. They mention you, thinking everything is okay and then they retreat back to their perfect happy lives.
You know, I am very good at pretending that I am okay. Whenever I hear your name, I just smile. I smile because if I just uttered a single word, I would break down into tears. A smile has become such a good disguise for me.
It’s been five years already. But I can still see you standing at the door and saying those five words that broke my heart into a million pieces:
“I don’t love you anymore!”
The words still echo in my mind and they sometimes get so loud that I have no other choice but to silence them with my sobbing. It still hurts, you see. It still makes me cry.
When you broke me into pieces, my heart hurt so badly. I wanted to take you out of it so that I didn’t ache. That’s how much I loved you.
They say time heals all wounds but nothing has changed since the day you left. You were and you still are the love of my life. You are the love of my days and nights. You are the love of my hours and minutes. But after you, love has become a topic I’d rather skip. I wanted so badly to move on but I just couldn’t because I was still holding on to what we used to have.
People told me that time would help me heal. How ridiculous it was for me to hold on to those words. They gave me strength in those days when I wished to die. I thought time was so powerful to help me get over you. I believed time would be my ally. I looked forward to each day, wanting less and less pain. God, how wrong I was!
And now, five years after, I have come to a painful discovery.
Time did not heal all those wounds and all that pain you caused. Time just hid them somewhere deep, deep down in my soul. Time just transformed them into temporary outbursts of depression and tears. It transformed them into panic attacks and helplessness. There was so much of that pain that time could not just erase nor remove.
If time heals all wounds then why do I feel like this?
Why do I feel like everything has gotten worse?
Why do I keep on replaying everything in my mind?
Why did I not forget?
Whoever says time heals all wounds is a fuc*ing liar. No matter how much time goes by, the grief is still there. No matter how much time goes by, nothing gets easier. No matter how much time goes by, I do not get stronger. Trauma has never left my heart. I am still as broken as I was five years ago.
I am broken. Time has let me down.
Starting from scratch was impossible because my past followed me everywhere I went. I could not escape it. It was like a burden that has gotten heavier with time. It has gotten heavier and it is slowly numbing me.
Every once in a while there is something that reminds me of you. A song. A picture. A dream. A memory. The pain is still within me and my heart is still bleeding.
But I cannot waste my life waiting for a better time to come. I cannot waste my life waiting for time to heal me. Because time will never heal me. Acceptance will.
I need to accept the fact that my sadness is real. My heartbreak is real. You hurt me and I cannot change that. I cannot rewind time and stop you from leaving me. It is what it is and I need to accept it. I need to let my emotions overwhelm me. I need to accept my pain for what it is—a part of me.
It is a part of me that I have to embrace and accept. Acceptance is all it takes for me to heal.
And one fine day when I am healed and happy, I will laugh so hard that I will forget my scars ever existed.
