An Opus to Silence
“Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart.” -C.S Lewis
I had to continue to live all the while knowing that deep down, what we had was dying.
Although this is not an experience of death in the most conventional of terms, it is an experience of a kind of death. It still qualifies as grief, as mourning the loss of someone you love, as having to emote all of the sensations that come with experiencing a death. With going through the motions of a profound and crucifying loss.
Quite often, the universe works in mysterious ways. Placing certain events and circumstances in tandem with one another. I’d like to believe that this is the case for our story. The birth of a new life flowing in as the death of an old one phases out. I see so clearly now that there was never any room for both of us to exist within your life. I wanted so vigorously for this not to be the truth.
She is the sun and I am the moon. She is the light as I fade into the darkness.
Our story begins as two strangers meeting one another at the brink of affliction. At perhaps a time in which we each were at our most vulnerable and delicate. I’d like to believe that we were two lost souls meant to find one another.
I was on a mission — a soul revival, to discover what occurs in such a space. At the brink of a heartbreak, how do we as humans, navigate this time and space of grief? Ultimately, what occurs during this process, as we inevitably present and prepare ourselves for the reawakening of our souls. I longed to uncover how we as humans survive a lost love.
As for you, affliction came in the form of a betrayal that struck once again at the core of all that you had sacrificed and given to her. A love that had become so removed it required both physical and emotional distance to sustain it and keep it from unraveling. You had stored up so much resentment and pain inside, that the only outlet was to numb and not feel at all.
Until you met me of course. Perhaps that is part of the reason why we were destined to fail. Doomed to hit rock bottom even before the relationship began. Your “love tank” had been drained for countless years now; and throw a betrayal into the mix — Presto! A symphony for disaster. A crescendo of heated arguments, tit-for-tat psychological ploys, and lost translations. Followed by complete silence, feigned ignorance, and passive stubborness. Finally culminating into minimal interaction, avoidance, and denial.
Cue the modulation.
It had been coworkers and mutual friends who led to bring us together. In their hearts, it was an instinctual knowing that vibrated within their intuitions, which fueled their persistence.
Then you took that leap of faith…
In all the moments we spent together, sometimes I would wonder if you could hear the sound of my heart breaking. Breaking for an old love that hadn’t received its proper closure, breaking from the notion of having to run on borrowed time with you, breaking from having to hold it all together every time you would speak about her with such a lingering, desperate longing.
Then came the moment that I knew.
That things would never change. You would forever remain torn and stagnant in the in-between.
“For once in your life, can you just please, please, be honest with yourself and make a choice. Tell me what you want.”
You stood there in the open road and refused to look up at me. In that moment, I knew I had struck a chord remarkably infinite, that I immediately regretted being so honest.
“Wait, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just don’t know what to do or say anymore.”
The look in my eye was enough to make your hands tremble, as you began to walk towards me. Each one of your breaths and movements in sacred harmony with the weight of both our emotions combined.
In hindsight, there really is complete truth to the sentiment of knowing and seeing something so clearly all at once, when it finally hits of course. You needed a way out. Not needed, wanted. There’s a difference. Time was your scapegoat. We’ve all done it before. Human instinct. We can’t help but rely on this resource as a safe guard.
“I don’t want to hurt you. You just have to give me some time. Be patient with me and trust me.”
You needed the space to see something extremely important through. How could I not give this to you? I honestly believed you would come back though.
“It’s not what I truly want deep down, but what choice do I have?”
Choose me, choose me.
I wanted to audaciously proclaim to you. Choose me, choose me. Just choose me. But instead, all that was able to leave my lips has always been a resounding, drawn out silence. I have so much to say to you, yet not enough time and resources to say it with. This silence continues to follow with words and syllables attempting to disguise themselves as factions of sanity. As golden nuggets of platitudes and all encompassing expressions. All in an attempt to desperately conceal how I feel — the heaviness of it all, the pain and shame that has become my reality for far too long now.
It’s time. It’s time to claim happiness and serenity back. We all deserve to forgive, let go, and move on from what has happened to us.
I loved you, I loved you. Did you love me, did you ever love me?
I loved you, I loved you. Did you love me, did you ever love me?
I loved you, I loved you. Did you love me, did you ever love me?
She is your North Star — your beginning and fated ending. This April 7th will symbolize one year since the course of our paths merging. In anticipation of this date, I have earnestly been grasping at memories and conversations in search of an answer to the “why” in our relationship. As if an answer would serve as a panacea to my heart’s ailments. Believing that with an answer, I will finally be able to no longer hurt. The hurt will always be there.
One day, it will just begin to hurt less…and less…and less…and less.
In an effort to escape from the grief, I have been relentlessly running. Transporting myself back to the memories, afraid of letting them go. Memories are all I have left of you.
Without them, you will soon be someone that I simply used to know.
However, your silence will not determine the trajectory of my narrative. Trust me, we can have the best of intentions, I always did with all my past partners. Yet when we hurt someone, it is still our responsibility to own up to this. Not to fix it, or cover it up, or even to erase the pain, but to simply and wholly, own up to it.
Everyday in the time we spent together, and the time that has elapsed since we parted, I have had to say goodbye to you. Essentially, I have had all this time to prepare. Why then, is the depth of my grief still more than I can handle?
The hard and honest verdict?
There is no answer to this grand mystery of our love story.
No absolute truth or certainty that I can adhere to in the aftermath of all this. It simply is what it is. An almost love is still a love in and of itself. The events unfolded as they did, simply because they did. You changed your mind and left because you simply did.
There’s the old adage, that “time heals everything.” Time on its own and at its core, does not heal anything.
Healing does not merely come with the passing of time. It is what we do in that time, with that time, which brings forth the healing. Your words are beginning to lose veracity. Your touch has already disappeared. Your physical presence has long been absent. It’s your emotional stain that still takes residence within my spirit. It’s the debilitating and persistent hope that remains.
Then of course, there’s the memories. How my mind so carelessly drifts to the idea of what we were and could have been.
The fantastic allure of the one who got away.
The idea. It was never real was it?
You were always going to choose her. I wish you would have told me.
But then again, maybe I should have been more aware of the signs; to all the subtle ways in which you were always just distant enough to not become vulnerable. To not commit. To not feel. To give and subconsciously withdraw all within the same breath.
I searched everywhere and couldn’t find you anymore amongst all the silence.
All that remained was silence.
Where does your mind go when all you receive is silence? A hollow, persistent, uncanny stillness. Completely void of any noise, yet so full of potential and apprehension all at the same time
This is me putting an end to this war. This is me finally speaking up and choosing to not be silent as you did. As you continue to do. This is me choosing to own up to my story and love myself enough through this journey; for simply showing up, rather than continuing to run any longer. For standing brave in the face of love and truth. This is me claiming my voice back.
Don’t you dare ever shame me for feeling too much or being too much of a woman. Don’t you dare ever demand that I be less of anything other than who I am. Don’t you dare ever quiet the passion and tenderness that drives every essence of who I am. Don’t you dare ever use silence as leverage to quiet my voice. To deter me from sharing my story, to keep me from continuing to heal and love myself through it all. Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare.
I was always the composer in this piece,
constructing musical songs and rhythms, hoping to cultivate meaning, and fill your world with such resonating beats. To knock on your heart and mind in the kindest and most gentle of ways I knew how.
You, have always been the conductor.
Desiring to believe in the composition I was writing, but simultaneously, resigning defeat as you slowly pulled back from the full force that this opus was deserving of.
“Con amore ma non tanto” (with love, but not so much)
“Con spirito ma non tanto” (with spirit, but not so much)
“Con moto ma non tanto” (with movement, but not so much)
This musical composition receives its energy, force, meaning, and legacy from a “molto espressivo” blood. I have never been one to love lightly. This musical term originates from Italy, and in music, indicates the meaning to play expressively. The performer is encouraged to convey the mood of a composition through physical expression, in the form of subtle liberties, articulation, and dynamics.
I don’t think there will ever be an encore for us. The performance in and of itself is enough. I have come to see and feel this more and more, as I have battled with time to heal me. Time and space. Love as it plays out in our society today, is always more about the performance and less about the encore. I can understand this phenomenon in a way, because love, as it is so often mistaken, is after all a feeling.
Or at least this is the misconception I have held on to all my life.
Searching for love based upon this narrative — in all facets of my life — partners, places, possessions, religion, and circumstances. Withal failing miserably because of this notion each and every single time. Well, it’s time to change this narrative and embrace love as an action. A choice we willingly and intentionally make. A commitment. With this new narrative, you will never have to wonder when it is right. When love makes sense and is easy in this way, as it ebbs and flows organically, within the natural rhythms of both individuals. You will never have to wonder.
I love the person I am becoming.
Each new discovery and obstacle I encounter along this journey, incapacitating me in a way that I have never felt before. Mixed in with the fear and uncertainty, comes a wealth of excitement, hope, and courage. So much of the me I should have been focused on loving and building up from the very beginning.
I feel so fortunate, and honored to boldly shout to the universe, that this child needs a man like you in her life. You are her father. The best one there could be if you ask me. As for what this means for you and the mother? Not for me to decide or torment over any longer.
I can no longer hold on to your story anymore.
It conflicts too much with my own. I am hopeful that this will be a second chance for you both, to work through and rekindle what ever needs to be fixed. For the sake of this child. But also, for the sake of a bigger kind of love — one that flows in the name of growth and healing.
