Friday, January 9, 2015

All I Left Behind

An image that will stay in my mind forever is pulling out of Sean’s parent’s driveway after Sean and I said our goodbyes. We embraced for a long time and I held it together. We walked out into the frigid cold and when I turned my back to round my car I began to lose it. How could I turn my back on so much good? What was I heading towards?
I mustered all the courage I could to prevent a breakdown, but getting in my car and looking up at him as he watched me back out of the driveway for the last time was extremely difficult. I was saying goodbye to my dearest friend, my first real love, and with him-- every sense of home. It felt almost like a horrible betrayal, even though we made the decision to part together and only after careful thought and many long painful conversations.
I came out just as I was turning 25 during the summer of 2010- a year I was lucky to survive. Sean and I began our relationship about 10 months later. In many ways I was starting a completely new life, and he was almost instantly a part of that. We both shared the experience of getting accustomed to our true skin which was, for the first time, exposed for everyone to see. He came out only about 6 months before we met.

Sean's parents
His family quickly became my family. Dinners at their house were frequent and going along on family vacations quickly became the norm. I even met and built relationships with extended family, just as he did with mine. We loved each other’s families and they loved us. We’d spend Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his. We shared the same friends because we both were meeting new people in the gay community together. We were each other’s everything. No one in this world knew us better than we did. 
my parents, my sister and her husband
It’s hard not to have my confidant, my dearest friend, my rock and support, my smile on a rainy day, my sweet loving companion. The water welling up in my eyes is a sharp reminder of all I left behind. I left every sense of home and every sense of belonging. I left a network of friends and family and community. People who love me and whom I love dearly. It is a lot for one heart to take.

I try to remember there were reasons for choosing this path. That this seemed to be the path life wanted me to take. But so far all it is is darkness and unfamiliarity and it is hard to see the lesson or growth that might come of it. With each new step into this unknown territory comes a stronger yearning for the warmth and familiarity of home. 

Time. Give it time.

2 comments:

  1. The birth pangs of new life are always the most painful.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I am learning that. On many occasions I've questioned whether I'm actually as strong as I thought.

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