There Are Some Things I’ll Only Learn With Time

There are things I’ll only learn with time. Things I cannot understand now, while a morsel of what feelings for you which may still remain are in play, but I know I eventually will.

That is perhaps the beauty of hope and endurance, knowing there will be light at the end of that abase of place we call the tunnel, no matter the depth of its darkness.

In time I’ll learn that when you left, abruptly, without a proper goodbye, or granting me those all too delicate five minutes of your time, you were giving me a chance to let you go more calmly. No last few minutes to savor the hope that maybe in time you would come back. Nor a chance to win you back. And in time I’ll understand what a blessing that was.

In time I’ll learn when you didn’t accept my apology, you taught me how important it is to forgive because I don’t desire to be who you’ve become, an “If only” man, who’ll wonder what life would have been like if only you gave it another chance. Although you broke the trust I built in you, I forgive you, for myself, and not for you.

In time I’ll learn that just because you broke my heart, that doesn’t mean you didn’t care for me. You just didn’t care enough. And there was nothing I could do about it.

In time I’ll learn it wasn’t me to blame. It was your inability to accept a woman who is  someone behind the apron, swollen belly, and quiet tongue, the kind of woman you weren’t used to-independent, free-spirited filled with the love and support of beloved family and friends, nourished with passion and zest. You should have set your bloated ego free and embraced me.

Now I’ve discovered how the ego is the enemy, it ruins the beautiful, and kills what should and could be cherished.

In time I’ll learn that when I told you I’d change for you in desperation and in attempt to keep you, and you didn’t accept, that you were doing me a giant favor. Perhaps the biggest favor of my life. You told me with you I could never be happy, and you were right. With you, I’d live in the golden cage you’d build for me. There, I would never breathe. There, I wouldn’t be able to soar and reach the dreams you told me you’d stand by, but at the end you wouldn’t.

In time I’ll learn how important it is to love, love and once again love. You were so broken and had so little trust in people because of your past that anything that went wrong scared you away.

But nothing except love can heal us, and only love can save us from our past. As Maya Angelou once said “Have enough courage to trust love one more time always one more time”.

In time I’ll learn that no matter how painful falling out of love with someone is, it is more painful to be with someone who doesn’t contribute to your growth. Who doesn’t want to share your success and achievements, who doesn’t kiss you at the end of the night and says “I’m proud of the person you’re becoming”. You feel the pain of letting go of someone for some time, burning and yearning to go back to where it started to fix the unfixable. But there is nothing more painful that staying with someone who makes you feel like you are not good enough.

All these things in time I’ll learn, and so will you. When your emotions and anger fizzles out, when it no longer matters why that person did what they did, how they felt and why their promises turned into the biggest lies, you’ll learn. And you’ll wake up one day, a wiser and a stronger person.

For now, I’ll stay patient, knowing that in time I’ll learn.