Release Therapy

I’m writing this because my brother A’keem told me to; shout out and big ups to him for helping me through. Before we start this, I have two disclaimers:

One: Many of you are not going to want to read this because it is going to be long and extremely depressing and I know you’re used to me being funny. So continue at your own peril.

Two: There is NOTHING WRONG with being single. Let me reiterate: NOTHING WRONG. I am in no way dissatisfied with being single; it’s how it came about that I take issue with.

Leggo, y’all…

About a month ago, after almost two years, I became single. It happened in the middle of the night. It was sudden. I was shocked. I was hurt.

Let me tell you what it felt like: for the first 10 minutes I was numb. I couldn’t move, my mind was foggy, I was speechless. He said he was sorry he hurt me and my self-defense mechanism kicked in: I told him not to be. He wouldn’t even look at me.

People who know me well know two things: I don’t cry and I don’t smile. I have nothing against either function; it’s just not something I allow myself to partake in.

That night… I cried. I tried to keep quiet so my roommates wouldn’t wake up but it was no use. It was intense. I literally cried for hours; I couldn’t stop to save my life. The more I tried to quit, the faster and the harder the tears fell. It felt like my whole world had just been crushed; my heart ripped into a thousand tiny pieces, doused in kerosene and burned. The ashes were unceremoniously flushed down a public toilet.

I woke up the next day feeling absolutely gross. My eyes burned, my body hurt. Everyone kept texting my phone, asking me what happened, bringing up the pain I was trying to push down. I was in the middle of writing two essays and I sobbed the entire time; I was a total train wreck.

I had every intention of going to my biology class, but I just couldn’t leave the room. This had never happened before; rarely had I ever felt a pain this all-consuming. I tried to get myself together, but I failed miserably; I cried all morning.

My poor roommates were so scared; they tried to comfort me but they didn’t know what to do. They ended up leaving me alone in the room to sort through the shambles that was my life.

I talked to A’Keem, who had a similar experience. He told me just about everything I told him when he was going through, but I didn’t want to hear any of it. I wanted him back. I wanted to end this nightmare, I wanted my heart to become whole again

Time passed. I hung out, I partied, I thought I was doing okay. But I wasn’t; not even a week later I was back to sobbing uncontrollably. I didn’t understand why it happened; I still don’t. I was breaking and the one person who usually helped me through was the one breaking me; I didn’t know what to do.

Gradually I tried to get better. But the worse was yet to come.

That night he said he still cared about me. He said he would always be there for me. He said he wanted us to still be friends. And then… he ignored me. He wouldn’t answer my texts. He wouldn’t mail my stuff. I gave him the world and he wouldn’t even give me a cold shoulder; it burned me to my very core.

All of a sudden in the middle of the night he texts me. He said just about everything I wanted to hear short of “I made a mistake; please take me back.” Trying to protect what little dignity I had left, I tried to push my hopes down and assumed he was drunk.

We talked about it the next day. Not only was he sober, he was dead serious. But I was still angry; I don’t take too kindly to getting my heart ashes flushed down a toilet. And that anger leaked out before I could stop it: “You left me. You took everything I had and you left. You didn’t even say I love you…”

He got pissed and stopped answering, and the few times we spoke after that he always got mad. I didn’t know what to do; I was so confused.

And then one day it stopped completely. He ignored any attempt through any medium to contact him. It hurt even more than him breaking up with me. I felt like such a fool. And he still had my stuff; I don’t think I’m ever going to get it back.

I don’t know what to do, y’all. I’ve been crying the ENTIRE time I’ve been writing this; the pain is as searing as the day it happened.

One thing I’ve never believed in was the power of love. I mean yeah it sounds nice and it’s the dream little girls are fed since birth but it was never for me. As long as I’ve been dating I’ve been using them, abusing them, and tossing them to the side.

And of course the one time I let go of the illusion, it backhands the crap out of me. I was a fool. And I was stupid and naïve and horribly girlish. I let my guard down and got burned for it.

Lately though, my self-defense mechanism has been kicking in. Better late than never, right? Wrong.

For whatever reason, probably to protect my sanity, my mind has been… erasing certain memories. Things I used to think about all the time don’t even come up on my mind anymore. Daydreams, fantasies, indulgences, all gone, just like that.

You have no idea how hard it is. Every day I think about it. I wish I could be mad but… I can’t. I’m still the naïve little girl who let her guard down, who let her heart go. No matter how hard I try, no matter what I do to try to change it, I can’t help myself.

So I’m back at square one. But this square is different; its foreign and unfamiliar. I don’t like it in the least bit.

I was a good girlfriend; no. I was a great girlfriend. When I say I gave him the world, I snatched it up, gift-wrapped it, and had it delivered on the backs of elephants. I go hard in relationships; that’s just how I am. My philosophy is if I don’t do it, some basic crumb-snatching broad will.

I don’t know what I’m going to do now. We’ll see how everything plays out… There may be a Release Therapy Part 2 in the near future…