I Think I Knew You Were Gone Before You Even Left

The image we portrayed to the world was picturesque. Two small town, high school sweethearts, who had endured through so much and finally found our way back to each other. It was Nicholas Sparks worthy really. But that image was never the truth was it.

I finally realized that as I was painting our cabinets the perfect shade of off-white, in our newly acquired, small but perfect house on the lake. It was perfect to me because I would be sharing it with you.

I painted. I cried. With each brush stroke I could feel a piece of my heart fall.

I think I knew I would never put our brand new set of dishes in those cabinets to store.

I think I knew we would never share the same bed in the room I had painted.

I think I knew you were gone before you were home.

I wonder sometimes if I ever really knew you. We both changed throughout the years, but I always thought we had grown together. Instead you had one foot out of the door before I finished fixing the
screen.

I know you think I’m mad at you for leaving. That I blame you for everything, but I can’t. I can’t be that selfish to place the burden on your shoulders when it should equally be on mine. I could feel you slipping and I only grasped harder.

I am mad at you for the way you left. It must have been easy for you, to TEXT me from across the country, one month before you came home, to tell me that throwing away 10 years was for the best. I can’t explain to you the feeling of that. Like a rug had been ripped out from under me, with no floor to catch me so I continued to fall. Like I had suddenly been placed on a beach with a tsunami wave about to crash just feet in front me. Like I was trapped inside our new home while a tornado tore through it, taking my breath and heart with it.

You gave me short, unfulfilled explanations. You blamed me for changing. And I knew that this time, there would be no closure given from you. No words of comfort or love. And so, slowly, I took everything back from our home that I had given…And I made my own.

Because I think I knew you were too scared.

I think I knew you could never handle the amount of love I was willing to give.

I think I knew I would be infinitely happier without you…and you knew it too.

So I built a home, something my own, without a trace of you or the storm you caused. And I started my own happily ever after.