The 19th of December.

December 19, 2012.

I woke up the morning of the 19^th with a smile on my face, and everything was as it had been. However, when I laid my head on my pillow that night, I fell asleep with tear stained cheeks and an ache bigger than I could have ever imagined welling in my heart. Somewhere between the morning and nightfall I had gone from one, whole being, to a thousand shattered pieces, more than just a handful of which you walked away with after we hugged our last goodbye.

I guess the loss I felt as I watched you walk away from me was my own fault. The past 13 months I had placed my hopes and heart in you, rather than in Christ, and that’s a mistake I hope to never make again, though I find myself failing at it every day since then.

***

It’s been a long year, though looking back it went by rather quick. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s been a whole year, other times I feel like you’re simply a distant memory. Either way, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds have come and gone, never to be gotten back, forever swallowed into history. And not one of those days has gone by that I haven’t thought of you, the life and the love we shared, and the parting of stories that forged its way on that day.

***

December 19, 2013.

Though everyone thinks I should be healed by now, I’m not. Though I’ve lost friends over it, though I fight with family because of it, though I’ve come to hate who I am because of it, I cannot seem to let you go. I have a grain of hope in my soul that won’t seem to fade away. And even on days when I think that hope is gone, it finds a way to creep back into my heart. So on that day, the 19^th of December in the year 2013, I desired to break free from the restraint you’ve unknowingly put on me. Into the sea I cast my pain, the tide carrying it far, far away, dispersing it, lessening its grip on me. I didn’t cry this day.

***

It’s now a week later, and though I thought that on the 19^th I’d get the relief I’ve so longed for, I find myself still longing for your love again. I hate what you did to me, I hate the way I am now, and though I know that only I am responsible for myself, I still can’t shake the hate I have of what you did to me. And what I hate more than that, the thing I hate the most, is the fact that I only feel hate because I feel love. I still love you, though I don’t know why. And one day I’ll look back, with only a whisper of this love in my memory, and I’ll see the lessons I’ve learned, the ways I’ve grown, and the reasons for why. And maybe one day I’ll find myself in a new love, one far greater than that I ever felt for you, but until then I’ll remain, hurting and heartbroken, quietly.

[alc]