The other day I found myself missing you. It was St. Patrick's Day Weekend--which would have marked our "10th" anniversary of being together. For a split second I thought of you. I had a sense of missing you. But was it really you I was missing or was it the illusion of you? The visible marks of bruises you left are long gone but scars remain.
As fellow survivors know, that to be a survivor, first you must bleed. You bleed all that is inside of you; the hurt, the pain, the memories, the fear, the wounds fusing together, the ties to what was in, all its forms. You bleed not once but several times. And when you are empty, you either fade into a shadow or find the strength and courage to live. When you stand up again, you are for a time, hollow-empty. Then you fill yourself up with the new, you recreate yourself, you reform, you breathe again. You don't have the same heart or mind. The way you see the world is forever changed.
I remember looking at my shadow in the mirror, studying it, observing it, watching it, sometimes talking to it, because it was all I knew. My self-esteem, loyalty, trust, independence had all been taken from me by you. I secretly still carry the scarlet "V" on my chest. All because I loved the wrong man. Yes, you may have taken my breath away, taken the wind out of my sails and you tried to break my spirit--but I have come a long way from being broken.
