Voices tell me I should carry on.

I've been writing this blog post in my head for weeks now, thinking of the things I need to say, things I need to get out. But when I sit down to do it, my head goes fuzzy and I can't manage to pull the thoughts to my fingertips. I guess a steady stream of conscious thought is the only way I'll ever be able to get out what I need to. I'm hoping this is therapeutic for me, since so much has gone on that I haven't been able to process yet.

I'm trying to figure out how my life is in the state that it's in now, and I'm no closer to figuring it out than when I started over a year ago. I'm nowhere where I thought I'd be when I was picturing my future, and I have no idea where I'm going. I've been separated for 8 months (as of today, actually). I thought I'd have started to move on by now, but I still cry for the family that will never be again. I've tried everything within my own power to make my husband fix mistakes that were made on his part, but it's not something he's willing to do or even feels capable of doing. Nothing I say is convincing enough, and I'm left wondering what I could have done to be so unwanted by my best friend in the whole world. I never asked to be cheated on, I never asked for this separation, and I certainly didn't ask not to see my children every single day. But yet, all of those things happened, and I'm struggling to cope with where I go next.

Eight years I've spent as one half of an imperfectly perfect love. Through struggles and triumphs and laughs and giggles and tears and cuddles, I grew from a child of 15 into a woman of 22 with my hero by my side, and two beautiful children that joined us for the ride. But now I'm 23, and I live in a lonely one bedroom apartment with echoes of my children's laughter and blank spaces where their toys should be scattered. The bed I sleep in at night is mine alone, not the shared home of a husband and wife. Meals are fixed for one and hugs and kisses to my children are passed via video chat. It is a truly lonely place.

I've been thrown a lot of curveballs in my fairly short life, but this one was one I really never saw coming. From spending the first 5 months of my marriage alone while my husband served his country in Korea, to nearly losing my beautiful boy to a miscarriage, I've learned and grown and become a strong woman. But I don't think there's strength out there for the pain you feel when you learn the devastating news that you just weren't enough for your husband. But in spite of the struggles we've faced, he still holds the other half of my heart. I dream about him every night, and I see his face in all of the little reminders I find in my day to day life. Every song on the radio is about him and me, and every place from Greenville to Fort Polk and across the ocean has some memory tied to the last 8 years. He tells me I'll move on, but I can't begin to fathom how to move on from the kind of love we had. How in the world do you put that on a shelf and open the next chapter? My beautiful children carry the face of their father, and in their eyes, I see his love. Everyday, my heart breaks at the thought of all that I've lost at the hands of another woman. My children will never know what it's like to have parents that love each other, parents that live in the same house. At nearly 2 and 4 years old, they will have no recollection of what it was like when their parents were so madly in love that the rest of the world was a blur. They will never experience Christmas mornings with Mama and Daddy, and they'll never get to go on family vacations. They've lost so much that they never even had a chance to desire, and my heart breaks for them. They've been condemned to one parent homes for the rest of their childhood, and every day, they will wake up missing one of their parents, whether they are streets, states, or countries away. Mistakes were made that they hold no responsibility to, but bear the brunt of the consequences for.

Someone has to tell me that one day, this will all just be long lost memories, that life goes on, and one day, sooner or later, I will move on from this. On my drive home from Louisiana today, the majority of my time was spent listening to this song on repeat, and it continues to loop in my mind as I write this.


Just Give Me a Reason by Pink featuring Nate Ruess



"Just give me a reason
Just a little bit's enough
Just a second, we're not broken, just bent
And we can learn to love again."