One day, I said something I never thought I would: thank you for abandoning me! I never thought I could arrive to say the man I loved so deeply “Thank you for abandoning me!”. This is one of the biggest lessons life has given me.
I had lost myself in love, in hopes, in expectations, in waiting… in waiting for the man to change to be who I wanted to be, waiting for the man to take a step forward, without realizing that I have given away my life force.
I remember very well that day, that he hadn’t called for a week, and from anxiety I called him many times, and he finally said I am with someone else, and I didn’t want to believe it. I asked him to meet, and he agreed. But he didn’t show up that day and didn’t answer the phone anymore.
Still, I didn’t accept that, I pursued him, pleasing him to not leave me, calling him, reaching him.
Until, one day, I remember very well, in the very next table in a night bar, he was with his new women kissing. And I froze, I couldn’t do anything. I was alone because I had arrived earlier and my friend delayed coming that day. He saw me and he said we would talk. But I couldn’t feel, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t react, I couldn’t cry. I felt my world crumbling, how could that God do that to me. I froze, my body was protecting me from breaking into pieces, and that was the end with him. But, it took me years of pain and healing to accept that could have happened to me.
I went into the darkest and heaviest period of my life, I thought I would never and ever overcome that stage. I couldn’t even cry, but every day and night I had panic attacks, I was in pain manifested also in physical pain. I stayed closed at home for days alone. I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t talk to anyone for months, I was afraid to get out of home, no bar, no caffe, no friends gathering for almost a year. Friends also abandoned me, because I wasn’t answering anyone, and they thought I was being selfish. My world fell apart. I lost all friendship. The only thing that held me in that the most difficult period of my life, was my work, who supported me with days off, my healing journey, and my dream. I went into what spirituals say is ‘the dark night of the soul’.
I needed my time, I took all the time I needed to stay with myself, and slowly-slowly, months and some years later, I started opening to life again. And the first place I went night out, was that place and that table in that bar that night, to face my wound. And I felt I was free finally, I smiled, I danced, and I felt I had released him.
I started to rebuild myself and my life again, slowly-slowly, no rush. And I met him again, God wanted our paths and life to cross again. He stopped, he wanted to talk. But I said: sorry, I have to go. And yes, that was the end.
When I started opening up to life again, I was a different person, I was not performing anymore, I didn’t force anymore anything, I didn’t care what people think, I made a decision to never abandon myself again and realized how blessed I was that he had abandoned me, because I had abandoned myself for him, my dreams, my desires, my power, my life, I was only after him and he meant the world to me. He hadn’t taken them from me, I had given them away.
But now, it is all different, and even if it was painful like hell, it was the best thing it could ever happen.
It has a lifelong dream that followed me, and that dream kept me alive in my darkest period. I don’t know if that dream will ever become real, but I know for sure that it had a big purpose in my life, to give me strength and faith to come all obstacles, all darkness, all pain in my life. That dream was the vision I held in pain that gave me strength to move forward.
There were unbearable days, I didn’t think I could resist. But life wanted me to fail very deep and hit the bottom rock, to rebuild myself slowly-slowly. And my dream was there lightning my darkest days.
I don’t know why he left me, but for sure I know I wasn’t the person in the beginning of the relationship, I was someone who changed, who lost herself in love. But for sure today, I am a woman who will not abandon herself anymore to be loved and I understand that love isn’t meant to lose myself. That isn’t love.
