The Sun – part 1
The first time I ever met him it was a complete accident. I had no idea who he was. He was kind, in a very controlled way. Almost like he already knew was I was going to say or do before I even did it. He had a way of leading you to a decision and then making you truly believe that you had done it entirely on your own. It was manipulative but I found it sweet. Was he trying to empower me? It couldn’t be actual manipulation if I was aware of it right?
He unwrapped me. Like a present. Not in a sexual way, although that happened later. He had this unbelievable charm when he asked me questions. I could feel his hands before he touched me. They were in my chest, cradling my heart. It was almost like a very carefully rehearsed dance routine. We would speak for hours about everything and nothing. He unwrapped himself first. He showed me the heartbreak he felt when his mother died. I could almost see the blood dripping from his heart. It was if he had been stabbed, and every breathe he used to tell me about his mother, it physically broke him to speak. He did not appear to be lying. To this day I truly believe he wanted to be sad. I believe he was sad. What I’m unsure of is why he was sad.
Was he sad that his mother died? Was he sad because he wasn’t there when it happened? Or was he sad because she may have jumped in front of the car?
I didn’t ask any of these questions. It would have been unkind. So I held him. I held him as he cried, soothed him, over and over again. And so the dance continued. He would unwrap me, I would unwrap him, he would cry, I would cry, and we would come together. It was the most love and vulnerability I have ever experienced before in such a short period of time. I felt like one of those couples in a movie, in that iconic scene where they’re aggressively and manically undressing each other on their way to the bedroom. They have no control over themselves. It was like that with him, except it was a rushed undressing of my soul. I felt like I was watching myself spring towards him in slow motion. I could feel myself becoming more and more intrigued with his ability to expose his brokenness so plainly for me to see. It seemed plain to me that his heart had been bleeding for years but no one had been able to see that. Until me.
And so I unwrapped myself. He didn’t have to even ask. I was happy to do it. It was like small talk had become so foreign to us that we found it hard to talk about day-to-day activities. I unwrapped each layer carefully, but not slowly. He never broke eye-contact. It was unwavering. I felt like it represented the type of love he would develop for me, With each layer I felt lighter. It was as if I was becoming the most truest version of myself. He held me, validated me, and promised he would do everything in his power to make me the happiest, brightest, most beautiful life I could ever imagine.
I realized that I hadn’t imagined my life for a very long time. I had been so focused on surviving, I had completely forgotten that life can, and should be, beautiful. I remember looking down at my arms. They were covered in white and pink reminders, some old, some only a few days old. They reminded me that my life used to be dark and hard and painful. He knelt down and kissed them. Very gently. It felt like he was saying goodbye to them. The cloud around my head had lifted a little bit higher, as if he had pushed it away slightly. In that moment, I felt myself begin to imagine a beautiful life again, one worth living. It felt rebellious, as if choosing to remain alive was the sin, not the attempts to take it away.
I didn’t tell anyone I had started imagining my life again. I didn’t want to jinx it you see. Ive had this feeling before, it never stays, the sun loves to toy with me. Shine on me long enough for me to get warm and then just as im about to relax, it disappears in a flash. It feels so cruel. And so I remained silent, even if the sun is shining, just in case the sun leaves me. Isn’t that what everyone does? Leave? Or do I push them away?
He felt like that sun. He felt warm and radiant, and as if he could grow an entire forest with his existence. I decided to believe in the possibility that sun may shine on me again. How could it not? He was standing right in front of me, arms wide open, begging me to let him hold me and make everything okay. If I ran to him, am I choosing him or myself? Is he the sun? Or does he just make me feel the sun’s warmth? There are some questions that don’t need to be asked or answered. Not everything is black and white.
And so I ran to him and he ran to me. The sun was there. I am not sure if either was were the sun or if the sun was simply coincidently shining directly on us, but I know I could feel its warmth and radiance. We were completely unwrapped, bare, with each other in complete acceptance. I never knew it was possible to enjoy a human being and never want to change them. Even the brokenness. What a revelation. I remember I began to breathe differently. I felt like I stopped surviving. I decided to enjoy the sunshine, wherever it may be coming from.
The Ocean
Love is a difficult to comprehend. It feels different to different people. It feels different with different people. It feels different over time. Love cannot be measured or defined. Love is not one thing. It is an action. It is also a feeling. Love is a decision. Love does not hurt. It cannot. Only people can hurt. But only a person can love. So then, surely love hurts?
I don’t think anyone really knows how to love. Yes we can be taught different things by various people. But in my honest opinion, throughout our lives, are we not just constantly loving people and adjusting the way we do it forever? The way you love your child changes as they grow, we all know that. Humans never stay the same, we cannot. We are forever evolving, growing, and (hopefully), progressing.
That being said, the way we love, the way we give and receive love, the way we even understand love, that all evolves forever as well.
His love seemed so clear. He was direct, unashamed of his feelings. The way he said he loved me, it felt like some kind of declaration. He said it so carefully and gently. The first time I heard it I felt like I was going to burst. I became one of those annoying movie characters, making doodles and hearts in their schoolbooks. Except I was in my twenties and my schoolbooks were my phone memo app. He loved it. He loved my love, and I loved his. I never once stopped to consider whether he really loved me. It never crossed my mind that someone could ever fake that type of emotional connection. To this day I have no idea whether he truly loved me as deeply as I believed he did. If he didn’t love me, then what did I feel all those years? It had to be love, because if it wasn’t love then that means I did it for nothing. It had to be love. Right?
Love is strange as well. The term “rose coloured glasses” is supposed to describe people in love who overlook things they wouldn’t usually accept. That term seems so simple and nowhere near as complex enough for our love.
Our love felt like the ocean. Deep. Wide. Vast. Never-ending. The waves come in sets, every 7 minutes, that’s what my father told me when he taught me how to surf. Perfectly timed. Except with the ocean, the moon is in charge of the timing, not him. He controlled the waves. If he wanted to, he could bring it all crashing down on me like a Tsunami. He didn’t of course. Which he always reminded me of. As if I should have been grateful. I say this as if I wasn’t grateful, I was. Of course I was. I was so grateful for him. He saw me. Like truly saw me.
Our ocean was incredible. We’d spend hours on end in it. Speaking about each other, strengths, weaknesses. I felt like I could tell him anything. He said he felt the same. He made me laugh. He became my everything in such a short space of time. Suddenly, life without him seemed impossible.
Have you ever tried to walk out of the ocean when you’ve finished swimming? It depends on the ocean, but most beaches have waves with strong currents. Trying to get out of our ocean was like that. I felt like I was walking to the beach for hours but I never got any closer. The waves pulled me so gently I barely even noticed them. That’s how he was. He controlled the waves. He could make them tall and rough, pushing me towards the shore. Or he could make them gentle and calm, begging me to stay in for a little while longer. What I didn’t realise, was that often he would do both at the same time. Push and pull. Push and pull.
The ocean (the actual ocean) is beautiful. But it’s dangerous. People always say things like “Never turn your back on the ocean”. We’ve all seen videos of tsunamis. We’ve seen the pain the ocean can frate. But we are always so sure our own ocean would never do that to us.
I think about the ocean sometimes. I think I knew deep down that our ocean was dangerous. I must have. But I don’t remember ever thinking it at all. It’s hard to remember what my thoughts were though. They seem so faint, as if I dreamed it. I suppose that’s the minds way of protecting me. But I do remember that the ocean was incredible. There’s something so freeing about swimming in a body of water that could potentially kill you. That’s what it felt like loving him. The power and the immense strength our love had was overwhelming. But don’t we all give the people we love, power over us anyway? Isn’t that what trust is? I trusted him to love me. I allowed our ocean to grow and consume me. I trusted him to never use our ocean that we built together, against me. He knew he could. I knew he could. Is that normal? Knowing that the love of your life has the potential to break you not just metaphorically but physically?
The Sun – part 2
Somewhere along the line, the sun stopped being the beautiful, picturesque image of sunsets, sunrise, warmth on my face. The sun became harsh. It began to burn me. And it happened so gradually. Almost like water boiling. The fire had always been burning, the water was just warming up. Was the sun always a scorcher?
I found myself in a desert. He was there too. It felt like a dream. Like when you know someone is there, but you can’t see or speak to them. And then it began. The sun stopped being cosy and welcoming and it began to burn me alive.
First, the burns were minor. Sunburn he called them. He explained them away, planting kisses to make them disappear. But then they began to hurt. Stinging pain. Throbbing pain. He varied it to confuse me. The worst part about the entire situation is that I started to stop being surprised when it hurt. The pain became so normal that I started to be grateful for the lack of pain. As if it was some type of luxury.
He did not get hurt. He seemed immune to it. He also seemed to find my pain entirely inconvenient. Then he became the reason for the pain. It used to be indirect, I used to be convinced that I had somehow caused it myself. Then that wasn’t enough. Had I become too resilient? Did he actually enjoy hurting me directly? Why was I so resilient in the first place?
The first time he ever laid a hand on me was the last. It comes back in fragments, bits and pieces, like rainfall after a drought. One drop here and there, and then it came pouring down. I remembered him speeding in the pouring rain, skidding on the freeway, doing 250kms/hour, knowing I could barely breathe I was so terrified. I remember him laughing at me, mocking my sobbing. I remember being locked in the garage, screaming so loudly I went hoarse. The fear became so real. It was ice-cold and spread to my lungs. I could barely breathe. I remember running away from him, trying to find my phone which he’d thrown across the room. And then it began.
He used his head. I have no recollection of him ever using his fists, a loophole for the court case I suppose. But I remember everything else. The continuous splitting pain of his skull against mine. He threw me off the bed. I hit the wall so hard I could barely see straight. He kicked me so hard I heard a loud crack. And then everything went pitch black.
The next thing I remember is waking up the next morning. I was curled up in bed, pyjamas on, clean face, hair up. He was sleeping peacefully, holding me close to him like nothing happened. I couldn’t find my phone. I got up slowly thinking “How much did we drink?” because my mind felt cloudy. I caught a glance of myself in the mirror and I inhaled sharply, I barely recognized myself. The right side of my face was purple and swollen. I remember touching it gently with my fingers and nearly shouting out in pain.
When he woke up and saw me, he started crying. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t remember anything, kept falling asleep, which we know now was due to a severe concussion. I discovered my right ring ringer was completely fractured. I couldn’t breathe, the right side of my rib cage was purple from where he had kicked me repeatedly. I asked him to take me to the hospital but of course that was out of the question. What would people think of him? How dare I ask that of him? How dare I be so selfish?
So I laid in bed. My head and face swollen, my entire body throbbing with its own multiple heartbeats. My ribs broken, unable to use my right hand. He forbade me from going outside, as if I could even walk around or drive in my condition. After three days he began to complain that I was slacking at home. Why wasn’t I doing the grocery shopping and cooking him dinner? When I couldn’t even cut a potato without crying out in pain.
I wish the worst part was the physical pain. Oh how I wish to feel that pain again instead. The worst part was that he didn’t care. He apologized once, crying, saying he couldn’t believe what he’d done, how it would never happen again. And then just like that, I became an annoying constant reminder of how cruel he was. I knew that. I hated myself. My black eye took over 6 weeks to disappear. I found myself constantly confused and exhausted. He remained never happy, never sorry, and never ever changing.
I found myself alone. I began to realise I was living my future. I began to read the statistics. I typed words like “Domestic abuse” into google and read the percentages without feeling a single emotion. He began to threaten my life. “I’ll kill you next time”, began to show up as regular theme.
I almost believed him but I stopped myself. Because if I believed him, that meant I was marrying a wife beater and that was not possible. After everything I had been through, this couldn’t happen. He didn’t mean to hurt me, did he? It had to have been an accident. This can’t be my life. I spent all my waking hours debating whether or not my future husband would kill me. The other hours I spent heavily medicated or high, escaping from my thoughts.
It turns out, the love of your life should never hurt you, confuse you, or make you second guess your sanity.
The biggest blow was not being thrown against the wall or kicked in the ribs. It wasn’t even the repeated betrayal I discovered. It was the final realization that he was not the love of my life. He never was. Most importantly, I was never the love of his life. He didn’t even break my heart. I broke it myself. I had to. I loved him too much. I would have done anything for him. I would have married him, despite the risk to my life. That’s not love. I don’t even know what twisted emotion that is.
And so I ran: quite literally. Its been over a year, and I’m still running. But the direction has changed from running away from him, to running towards myself. Running towards true joy. When you’ve experienced such brokenness, the joy can be difficult to comprehend. You realise how miserable you were but how comfortable you had been in the misery for so long.
Life seems like a never-ending cycle of getting your heart broken. Either by others, or yourself.
Prologue
I can breathe. I am at peace. Last night I felt so comfortable with him. Almost like I had known him for years. Today, the way he smiled at me like an idiot, feels eclectic. The way it feels to kiss him, like I’m drowning and he’s the oxygen. I could breathe him in all day long. Am I going insane?
Life is good. Effortless. Light. It feels like dessert., so perfect, just what I didn’t know I needed. I feel safe. I am safe. He will never hurt me.
***
The ManifestStation publishes content on various social media platforms many have sworn off. We do so for one reason: our understanding of the power of words. Our content is about what it means to be human, to be flawed, to be empathetic. In refusing to silence our writers on any platform, we also refuse to give in to those who would create an echo chamber of division, derision, and hate. Continue to follow us where you feel most comfortable, and we will continue to put the writing we believe in into the world.
***
Our friends at Corporeal Writing are reinventing the writing workshop one body at a time.
Check out their current online labs, and tell them we sent you!
***
