Another night of staring at the tv, watching the same movie again. Looking at the empty walls here in this house. It’s funny, in a terrible way, how a home can become just another house. How the walls that were once covered in pictures of a seemingly perfect family are now covered in small knickknacks and the occasional picture of a child once present. How the halls and living room which were once filled with the laughter of an innocent little boy are now barren of emotion and quiet beyond compare. I can hear my heartbeat in this house. I can hear the ache of a love gone too soon. Of a love that was destined for more. It’s sad to think about, but in the darkness of my life there is hope. Hope, because along with the laughter and happiness there was pain and sorrow. The type of pain that can only be experienced. It can’t be described by words or by pictures of empty walls. It can only be felt through years of guilt and quiet suffering. Through the pain of effort gone by the wayside.

We used to believe in this amazing love. The love which would transcend the ages. Love people would see and dream of. Our happiness didn’t come from each other, it didn’t come from ourselves. It came from this idea of what our love could be. We never believed it would be us. There wasn’t a doubt in our mind we would make it, but therein lies the problem. Our life from the very beginning was something that would have to “make it”. It wasn’t something which already had. When we spoke of the future, things were going to be bright, things were going to be happier. We didn’t realize that meant things were unhappy now, or how we were currently dark and dimming. Instead of realizing how truly unhappy and how truly not right for each other we were, we spent our lives together believing that someday, we would be. Despite everything we did and didn’t do for each other, we believed. Belief tore us apart. Belief left these walls empty and the halls barren. Belief left our child with his own belief. The belief that this is what love looks like, that love was something to be believed in and not actually experienced. In the end our belief has left me without it. I don’t understand nor can I, how after all we’d endured we couldn’t endure the effort it would have taken to fix things. Maybe things were broken beyond compare, maybe things were really that bad. My disbelief doesn’t come from the idea that you’d leave me, but rather the thought that staying was so terribly hard to do, you felt compelled to leave.

As I write this I stare at these walls covered with replacement mementos in an attempt to bandage the pain behind them. We spent years bruising, cutting, and damaging these walls beyond repair. We covered the scars with photos and frames and never stepped back to really see the extent of the damage. We were both surprised when our love finally smoldered out. Like a candle burning and melting wax until one day, only the wick remains, unable to light. We were fools to believe that our idea of love was something that could be achieved without the actual feeling of love. What we perceived to be love was dependance. We depended on each other for everything from happiness to comfort, but we didn’t not once, feel true love. When I look at our baby boy, I feel love. True unfiltered love, there’s no other description. When I look at you, I can describe in vivid detail what I feel… I can explain it all away. At no point was there this indescribable feeling we call love. I saw comfort and contentment. All these things I felt I could find elsewhere. I can find them alone.

Loneliness is the sweetest sorrow. I’ve come to realize this after weeks of staring at a ceiling fan from a bed with a single pillow. From sitting at a kitchen table set for one. I’ve been sad before, I’ve grieved loss before, but not once did I relish the feeling. I’ve come to  be content in my loneliness for I know it is just the birth of a new life. A life full of possibilities and potential for new experience and new love. Not only for me, but for you as well. Despite my past contempt for you and the way our life ended, I’ve never wished badly on you. I want to believe if I’m feeling this way, then you must be too. For that, I’m sorry. The pain that comes along with the death of a relationship like ours is something I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. Just as I deserve to find the love we so wholeheartedly believed in, so do you. We’ll both be better for the experience and we’ll both endure the best we can because we have to. We’ll put on a fake smile and pretend like we’re okay and we’ll make sure our son knows he’s loved. But at some point, months or years from now, we’ll wake up and the smile won’t be fake. We won’t pretend to be okay because we really will be. With a little luck, we’ll have found the love we so desperately knew was out there and the time spent alone will have been the therapeutic hell necessary to find it.