I used to be convinced that there was nothing worse than The Inevitable. To me, I think it hurt the way it did because there was no Inevitable as far as I was concerned. I wanted forever, and if you gave enough, I didn’t see why we couldn’t have it. I was optimistic.

I used to think that there was nothing worse than the inevitable when it did happen. You don’t deserve to know how it tore me apart. You don’t deserve to know how I suffered through every day, how the ones who actually loved me had to watch me become a ghost of the happy person I used to be.

I wasn’t the same. I’m still not the same.

You didn’t have to watch the people I love look at me like I wasn’t there. Like they were mourning a person that was still standing right there in front of them. Maybe they simply knew that there were days, there are days, that I wish I wasn’t there. But, it wasn’t your fault.

Then I moved away, started to build myself back up in a new city with new friends, and somehow, still, you had your hooks in me so deep that I had the audacity to wonder how you were doing. You crept your way into my daily life, however slowly, our past haunting me yet again.

Even still, I couldn’t bear saying that I hated you. I couldn’t blame you for anything. Clearly, it was all me.

Then the Worse than Inevitable happened. We, as humans, have this funny thing that happens to us when something shatters our world. In the devastation, and in the unbearable pain of it all, we think, “This can’t get any worse.”

Well, a few days ago I discovered my Something Worse. And as I sat in my car with tears streaming down my face, crying so hard that I couldn’t breathe, screaming, I felt myself slipping. I was trapped in this foreign state, a fraction of the person that I used to be, and finally, I felt like I was nothing.

But that wasn’t your fault.

I spent hours, days, trying to rationalize it, trying to take the blame off of you, while simultaneously asking myself why I felt so empty. This was your predicament, your New Normal, not mine.

So why did I feel like the weight of the world landed solely on my shoulders? Above all, why did I wonder if you were okay? Why was my first thought, in the wake of earth-shattering devastation ‘Is he okay? How is he doing?’

You can only think the best of someone for so long before you realize, like a smack in the face, that you are viewing the world through rose-colored glasses. It takes the utmost strength to take those glasses off and toss them aside and realize that there are instances where people aren’t the saints that you painted them to be.

I loved you so much that those rose-colored glasses never left me.

Until today. And I refuse to apologize for it. Finally, the blame is on you.