Another Picture to Burn

Taylor Swift is a very wise young woman. I'm not sure how she managed to write a song about my life, but there it is. I was looking through a box of old pictures and found some that I thought I'd already properly disposed of. Just when I think I'm making progress, there he is again ripping my heart out and reminding me of the years I'll never get back, the scars I'll always carry. Just when I think I've forgiven and almost forgotten.

The anger wells up from somewhere deep inside. I try to ignore it. I try to squash it. It's like a wildfire that cannot be contained. I'm powerless against the sheer force of it. After all this time, you would think that the hurt and the anger would have diminished.

In my mind, I relive every day of our four years together trying to pinpoint where things went wrong. What should I have done differently? Was that the fight that made him stop loving me? Was that hair do that he hated the one that made him look at other women? What if I had said this instead of that?

Then the anger makes a sudden turn. Instead of chasing him, it is headed straight toward my neighborhood.

Suddenly I'm angry with me, not for all of the things that I think I should have done differently, but because I'm still making excuses for him. Maybe we did have a fight. Maybe we had lots of fights. But if he decided to stop loving me, if he decided to look at other women, if he decided to walk out the door and throw our life away, that was his decision. I didn't make him do it. When you truly love someone, it shouldn't be that easy to walk away.


And there's the real question that's always been in the back of my mind: did he ever really love me?


Even as I type that question, it feels as if someone punched me in the stomach and I can hardly breath. For so long, I would say that I thought he really did love me in his own way but because of his childhood he just couldn't express it. If someone had said that to me about their spouse, I would have explained to them how many things are wrong with that logic. Sometimes those lies are all that gets us through the day. They help us survive. But they are a double edged sword, one side saving us, one side cutting us deeper; until one day we find that we can't believe our own lies any longer.

Today is that day.

As I look at our engagement photo, the bright smile on my face so full of hope for the future, all I can see is the pain that was soon to follow. That smile became my disguise, my permenant mask to cover the pain. But that smile is gone, replaced by the tears that were his parting gift to me. On that day, I thought we were beginning a beautiful journey, walking the same direction hand in hand. On that day, he was thinking all his troubles were over because he'd found a maid for him and a mother for her.

Today I am forced to put away the lies of survival and face the truth. I wasn't the answer to his prayer for a life partner to share the journey with. I was the answer to his want ad for a caretaker to solve all of his problems. How could I have been so blind for so long? How could I have missed the signs? How could I have mistaken being needed for being loved?

Like Taylor Swift, today I'm striking a match on my wasted time.