I don't know when I first felt it.

I just remember sitting alone in bed at 1:43 am looking at the clock with blurry vision from constant tears and swollen eyes. It's so much worse than someone just leaving you. When someone leaves you, they cut off your oxygen completely. Killing you quickly, painlessly. But when someone begins to fall out of love with you, they give you baby breaths of air each day.

Some to keep you alive, but never enough to actually fulfill you. It's so exhausting because each day, while they hold the fate of your life in their hands, you're trying to figure out how to survive to the next day, just to do it all again.

-November 28th, 2014.

I had known awhile before this that he wasn't in love with me anymore. I had felt the absence of him even when he was sitting right beside me. I could feel his mind wander to a completely different place than the present. In that moment, I couldn't imagine ever wanting to escape anywhere. I just kept telling myself, as long as he was here with me, I could breathe just a little bit more.

The sick truth is, he was like a drug to me. I knew he wasn't good for my health, and he caused me more harm than good..but without him, I knew I was destined for destruction, and that was a path I was too afraid to face alone.

I think we all know when someone falls out of love with us. As much as our insecure minds work their magic on us daily, and try to convince us of things we know aren't true..we secretly all know deep down when someone doesn't love us anymore. I think the thought of that itself is scarier than knowing you won't have that person anymore. So in a desperate attempt, you tell your gut that it's wrong. You suck it up and keep pretending that life with him in this uneasy form, is better than not having him at all.

Every day you convince yourself of this, thinking it will make each time you feel this way just a little easier. But it won't.

-December 27th, 2014.

The day he left to go back home, I knew was the last time I was going to see him. I still remember what I was wearing, and the sounds he made as he said goodbye. They were all just quiet whispers to my screaming thoughts. I wanted to beg him to stay because I knew as soon as he got in the car, I'd never see him again.

Once again, my gut was right... I didn't.

-January 3rd, 2015.

Does this pain end eventually? Is it ongoing? I wish someone could tell me now so I can stop anticipating the day the twisted knots finally leave my stomach. I thought when he finally cut off my oxygen, I'd learn to breathe on my own..but I think this entire time I've just been secretly never wanting to remember. I don't really want to see a world without him.

-January 14th, 2015.

I feel stupid for wanting someone this much. I feel obsessive and dramatic, but with that, I still feel the pain almost every second each day. No man can fill this empty void, and no friend can soothe it. I have completely lost who I am, and I still have no interest in finding myself.

-January 25th, 2015.

I've been seeing someone. Each time he touches me I close my eyes and pretend it's him. I didn't know a broken heart was capable of so much. In just a short time frame, it has made my imagination grow. I never thought I could find so much comfort in someone, only to pretend it's someone else. This isn't normal, right?

-February 2nd, 2015.

Like the void that no other man can fill, I myself have yet to find a way to fill it either. Pretending only gets you so far. I think I'm breaking my own heart more, not coming to terms with the fact that he will never want me again.

-February 14th, 2015.

The person I've been seeing has told me this won't work. He says we have no chemistry, and to a degree I understand. Him and I didn't have the chemistry that I had with the man who broke me, and no amount of imagination or pretending could ever convince him of that. The scary part is-I didn't even try.

But for the first time, in a long time, I cried. I suddenly was alone, and the only thing I could think about was him falling out of love with me. I didn't have this other man to try and run to, at an attempt to hide these empty feelings. Instead, I was forced to feel what I had been trying to avoid.. the truth.

-February 17th, 2017.

In the last three days I have felt more alone than I've ever felt in my entire life. I think it's because I finally stopped pretending that everything was okay, and let myself sink into this miserable feeling of heartbreak. I needed to for awhile, but I had so much faith that loving someone was enough to get through even the hardest times. What the fairy-tales and romantic novels don't tell you, is that in order for love to get you through your hardest days, it has to be mutual. Mine, was not.

My love wasn't mutual because he fell out of love with me and I watched him. There was nothing I was able to do to convince him to stay, and with everyday that passed by, I could feel us becoming more and more distant, which made it all the more hard. You can't hide from this feeling. Eventually it will come around more frequently, and no man, drink, or drug will ever take that away.

When he falls out of love with you, you just have to let him. You have to learn to catch your own breath, and not rely on him for help. Don't try and lose yourself in someone else when you're still so lost alone. I guess this is what I've learned from watching the love of my life fall out of love with me.

----

I reread this frequently. I was really lost then, and I can't deny that reading it sometimes brings me back to that time. I can vividly remember some of the emotions I felt, and nothing is able to scare me quite like that.

At least I thought, but

loving someone again is an even scarier feeling, knowing at any moment, they too, could cause you such familiar pain.

A friend of mine once told me, "love was the best and worst thing to ever become of this world", and she was right. It is. I guess it's just up to you to decide if it's worth the risk.

August 30th, 2017.