Numb

I'm so numb, I can barely recognize how I feel. 
I feel so empty, I can hardly recognize that I am still here.
But, then I feel the tears and they bring me back to reality.

I can feel the coldness radiate off of him even through the phone.  Much different than our tearful goodbye!  He seems not to care.  He seems very distant and completely uninterested in any type of conversation.  It makes me wonder if he was under the influence of someone else to get out of here so quick.  I swore I wouldn't talk to him, I thought it would be easier...but with each thing I brought to sit by the door, it killed me a little more each time and I wanted just to hear him say something or to just read a text.  As he was leaving, he spoke of how hard it was to take all his stuff and leave, but I almost can't stand to be here...the constant reminder of him lingers.  Looking at the empty chair he always sat in is like putting a dagger through my heart and it's almost unbearable to know he is never coming back.  I can not sleep in my room.  This is the third time that I've had to pack up things for someone that I loved to continue their life without me but, this grief is so much different than I have ever experienced before. 

It was so fast and unexpected.  We were always so good at talking things through and finding some compromise or solution.  We never acted quickly on a decision but yet, took a few days to absorb what was going on.  But, that night...he made his opinion clear and though he was asking for mine, he didn't seem as though his decision was open for discussion.  I was frozen...numb...in pure shock and disbelief and unable to even truly process anything he was saying...so, when he did ask me a question, the only thing I could respond with was "I don't know".  It didn't even feel real.  It didn't feel like it was really happening.  It just didn't make any sense because we were both so upset, so why was he doing this.  Why was he leaving, just like that?   I wouldn't say he walked out on us easily, because he was just as upset as I was, but I guess I just don't understand why if we were both upset and it wasn't really what either of us wanted...then why was it happening? 

He says he left to stop from causing everyone more pain...I should feel greatful because I can't imagine it being any more painful for us.  I've lost love in my life, but it's never felt like this.  My kids are strugging, hurt, confused and they feel unloved and abanded.  I saw how my divorce affected my older kids and I hate that my younger kids are now losing the only dad they have ever known (and losing a dad for the second time already in their short lives).  I can't imagine, my babies being any more confused or feeling any more unloved or any more abandoned than they feel right now.  I hate that they have to endure this pain.  I hate that I feel like they need to know about their "real" dad, so that they don't feel like they have "no" dad.   

I hate what this means for me and how it feels.  I hate that everytime I pick up the pieces in my life and find happiness it always comes crashing down a few years later.  I hate so much about it that I just wish I could keep this feeling of numbness forever, so that I didn't have to feel anything ever again.

As always, I will pick up the pieces and move on.  I have to start somewhere and so, first...I will accept "who" I am.  My correct "status" is married.  I won't wear that title proudly, but I'll wear it honestly because that's what I am..."married".  I have always failed as a wife.  I can never be the wife I dream to be.  I'll think of my wedding ring like a tattoo...a lifetime reminder of where I am and how I got here, where I've been and where I can not go.  I may even wear it, so that I do not forget and loose a grip of who I am.  I will not move forward, for "my" life is over but yet I will simply exist in this life in which I live.

I am a mom and that is all that I was meant to be. This same path keeps being layed out in front of me...one which I walk alone...one foot in front of the other with my chin held high and a smile on my face.  I will count my blessings as I do everyday and accept my fate!  I love my children with all of my being, with every breath that I have in me, they are my life!  They are what my life is all about.  They define "me".  Every choice I've ever made, I've made for them because they are what matters, they are my only future and their future depends on me. 

This time "moving on" just means making the best that I can of my life and my situation.  It means accepting that my life has to take a different direction.  That I can't live my life the way that I want to but the way that I have to.  It means that everything that means anything to me will no longer be a part of my life, except of course, my six amazing children.

It means that I am so numb, I can barely recognize how I feel. 
I feel so empty, I can hardly recognize that I am still here. 
But, then I feel the tears and they bring me back to reality.