End Stage

Sarah’s heart felt heavy today, heavier than it had ever felt and the weight inside her was overwhelming.  It felt like winter inside her, a snow laden roof covering her spirit.  She wasn’t sure if she had the energy to face the day and wanted to climb back under the covers shielding herself from the pain and the chill inside her.  There would be no fire today, lit under her to carry her through the day, only pain and sadness.  The question was not how to deal with it, but if she could.

Time had not been nice to Sarah, it ticked away fast and harsh, each second of every moment now drowning out the sound of her own heart.  She knew it was beating, she could feel the pain of its pulse within her chest and yet she tried to ignore it and the warning signs that came with it.  She had been trying to do so since her youth, trying to understand why so much overwhelmed her, made her retreat into herself; she was never able to.  In those times she found comfort under the covers or under her bed when she was small enough to fit.  Crawling under the bed was no longer an option for her and yet she longed for the darkness, for the hardened wood floor beneath her bones.  She wanted her body to feel the pain that was in her heart.

Tony had packed his bags the night before, telling her that he was leaving as she walked through the door from work.  It had already been a stressful day, her boss was on her back and she was struggling to keep up with the tasks she had been assigned.  She felt as if she was losing her grip on reality and all that she had worked towards.  Tony’s announcement was just another stick to the pin cushion that had become her life.  One more painful prick, but this one was another one to her heart and one that she couldn’t bear.  She knew she loved him, that she always would, he had captured her heart and made the world a better place to be in, to breathe in.  He was tender with her in all the ways that mattered and he made her feel special.  She wasn’t sure what had happened and why he was leaving, she was blindsided by it all, by the look on his face. 

He had become stone cold towards her and she wasn’t sure why.  There had been times that they had argued, Tony had a temper and she was withdrawn at times, but she always thought that they had resolved things.  Sarah thought that at least until the next argument when the old issues would resurface, leaving her wondering if she was oblivious to the world, inadequate and ignorant.  Maybe she had always felt that way, inadequate and ignorant, maybe it stemmed from her youth, the times when her parents would argue and she couldn’t stop them, or maybe it was just what it was and she was too free with forgiveness and too easily convinced that she could be loved.  Still, his face had said it all, Tony didn’t need words, didn’t need to tell her that the love she thought she had found didn’t exist, for she saw it on his face.  Sarah knew then that she still loved him, and that to show that she needed to let him go for that was what he wanted and that was what Tony thought he needed to do in order to find happiness.  Sarah has always and only wanted Tony to be happy.

Sarah stood there, speechless and unable to catch herself.  Tony’s announcement was all of the words that needed to be said.  She knew that she couldn’t convince him to stay, that his mind was made up.  She just watched him, longing to put her arms around him, to have him hold her, for things to be the way they were in the beginning, but she knew that was not possible, that she couldn’t turn back the clock and make him love her like that again.  She knew that there would be no kiss good-bye this time, that there would be no hug or a proclamation of love.  Her longing would not be filled, her desires not quenched and her passion for this man extinguished as soon as he walked through the door.

She knew where he was going, he would be home, the place that had always been there for him.  He felt a comfort there and a sense of familiarity that she could never give him.  That house, his home was filled with memories that she couldn’t replace.  Love, she realized, was not a replacement for memories as strong as those.  It could not fill the gaps, or heal the wounds.  Sarah ran to the window and watched as he walked down the sidewalk, tears streaming down her face now as the taxi he had called pulled up.  The big yellow car was taking him away, to another place and time, a place that she could never go.  As she watched it pull away she saw the irony in it all, her struggles to find herself and to know true love.  He had been her sunshine, the bright spot in her life and now he was leaving in a big bright yellow car, taking with him her heart tucked away in one of his bags where it would remain hidden in the darkness forever.  Sarah wept at that moment, wept like she had never done before and she knew that life would never be the same.

"There is a beginning, a middle and an end to everything in life.  If we love fully, with every fiber in our being we will never be able to distinguish the parts of the whole." (me 2015)