So part of my problem is that I lived. I loved. I was young, foolish, and didn’t know how to do anything but give my whole heart. Those three years were like a dream of fire. It was intense, everything had special meaning, but the flipside of that was fear and threat of death or harm. But I was young and foolish, and lonely. So I lived on the edge. I loved as I have never loved before. I explored, I experimented, I did all the things that those motivational posters inspire you to do. They encouraged me every step of the way.
Everything pales in comparison to those three years. I will never know a time like that again, thank God. Leaving left me so empty. It is hard to describe what it’s like to have your world altered so completely with the revelation of one simple lie, when that one lie is the gossamer thread on which you’ve built your entire life.
Sometimes I feel like an emotional burn victim. The burn went so deep that I lost all the feeling. Even now, when it’s long closed over, all that’s left is scar tissue. It left me numb in a way that can’t be fixed. What I experienced was dangerous in its devotion and intensity. No one should ever trust another person the way that I did. No one should love another person the way that I did. No one should be as vulnerable as I was. It was innocent, but it was wrong. It burned me out, and the life I’ve built ever since sometimes seems like ashes in comparison.
I feel like people don’t get that.