About three days after we called off our relationship he relapsed, I watched him light up from the balcony of the home we once shared and I was heartbroken. It was like a train wreck, you don’t wanna see it but really you can’t stop looking. I honestly could say that in those 3-5 minutes I went through the entire spectrum of emotions, I was sad, heartbroken, angry, frustrated, upset, I didn’t care, but I did care. I mean I went through it ALL, the biggest part of me was concerned and I was sad. Sad that after everything we worked on with his sobriety he was willing to throw it all away. When I asked the question, why are you smoking now, his response truly left me heartbroken, “…because I wanted a smoke”.
Devastated, I watched him hiding beneath the tree smoking, pacing, knowing full well that he wasn’t doing the right thing and one by one each of the tears fell, one after another, one carrying more pain than the first. This wasn’t a fling, this wasn’t a flyby night romance, this was supposed to be our forever. We were all in, both of us were, we were a family and we were together for the long haul. Watching the man I loved for so long destroy himself, destroyed me. Crushed and broken I confronted him about it. I desperately wanted to not care, in fact I was actively telling myself you don’t care, it doesn’t matter, its not your problem, but love just doesn’t work like that. You can’t turn on and off the switch, you don’t just move on after two days and not care about that person.
Smoking to the average person – not withstanding that it’s a nasty and bad habit- is harmless, smoking for my ex is a trip down a slippery slope of substance abuse, one he’s battled since the day I met him. For two years I loved, cared for, cried over and worried for a man with no self control. Simple things that the average person could do weren’t possible for him, he couldn’t have just one drink, he couldn’t just have things in the house, he needed to consume it in unhealthy amounts until it was done.
As a little girl we think about our life and what we’ll have in our life and who will be in it and how we’re going to live, not knowing that the person you may fall in love with will come with baggage. Baggage that is foreign to you, baggage that is stifling, baggage that might weigh you down. Mama always says you can’t help who you love and it’s true, I can’t help that fate would connect us and we’d open our souls up to one another and then fall in love as hard as we did, it wasn’t a hot, steamy Summer love, it was a slow, steady and very cautious fall romance. We loved each other immensely, maybe almost to a fault, we held each other to a high standard often forgetting that the other was human and made mistakes or needed room to do so. As the conversation progressed it became so clear to me how much he didn’t respect me, how much he didn’t care for me and really it showed me how mean and cold hearted a hurt and immature man could be.
Life has a funny way of revealing itself to you and sometimes it’s easy and you get the lesson and sometimes -like in my case- you resist and you resist and you get more and more uncomfortable and you’re forced to hear what the universe is saying. The week of our breakup as I got every Monday morning, Spotify delivered my weekly personalized and curated list and a song called intentional by Travis Greene was suggested. I heard it, loved it and didn’t stop playing it. It sings “All things are working for my good, He’s intentional, never failing” I sang it over and over and over again. It wasn’t a song it was my mantra to the universe it was my invitation for the light of this world to come in and cleanse my life.
So here I am, without the love of my life, without the man who I had built so much with but with a restored sense of clarity, focus and understanding that the universe had my back and that indeed all things were working for my good and that this break up was INTENTIONAL!
