Trauma

Maybe it's the dreary weather. Maybe it's the looming one year anniversary. The acknowledgment that, for the first time in my life, I spent a year alone, flying solo, and it wasn't terrible. In fact, parts of it were terrific.

But, admittedly, some days the trauma still slaps me in the face.

The suddenness with which my life changed, dramatically. How I woke up one morning with a best friend, a husband, a pet, a house, belongings and a life plan, and, within a few hours, had nothing. Or everything, depending on my frame of mind. Because that level of misery isn't really living. It just looks perfect from the outside.

That said, what makes it harder to work through, is also that, of course, it wasn't all bad. Parts of that life were amazing. Wonderful moments. Like falling in love. Being able to finish each others' sentences. Knowing that someone always had your back. Right up until they didn't anymore.

The smallest things can trigger pangs of loss, and drive me deep back inside my own head.

For example, recently, one gentleman friend sweetly put on one of his favourite songs for me, not knowing that it was the song I danced to at my wedding. The song my ex sang to me as we fell in love, strumming his guitar on campus as we thought we could take the world on together.

Wonderful memories. But also reminders of what I had, and what I don't anymore. Making me realize that I really didn't lose everything in one fell swoop, but rather it slowly eroded over time. You don't fall out of love quickly, waking up one day next to a stranger. Rather it disappears over time, one argument, one put-down, one conflicting priority at a time.

And, perhaps, much like falling out of love, mourning that loss doesn't come quickly. Days get easier. Simpler. But an arbitrary anniversary doesn't mean that I'll wake up that morning and be totally over it - the good parts and the bad. It's going to take more time.