I woke up one cold winter's morning years ago. I was in love and I felt wonderful. My love and I had been on the phone the night before and everything seemed fine. It was only weeks previously that we had slept together in this very same bed in which I was now waking up to behold the whiteness and the magnificence of the snowy vista that was the view from my bedroom window. There was not the slightest indication that there might be a problem. I was in love and as I re-entered the bed and curled myself up under the duvet, warm thoughts of this love in my mind, I assumed that this must be what happiness feels like.
This love and I had met nine months before. During that time we had developed the kind of relationship that I had always dreamt of, both of us at par intellectually. The relationship was stimulating and exciting and the feeling of knowing that this person felt the same as I did was heart-warming. I thought it was a secure place to be, a place that I hoped would be intact forever. But how wrong I was proved to be, because on this very same day, by sunset, I had received word from this love by email and by phone that unfortunately we would not be continuing with our relationship. In short, I was being told the words "It's over!" An attempt was made at providing an explanation, and the reason given made sense too. We were separated by distance.
But this was a factor we knew about from the onset and one that we had both agreed we would work around, with a view at some point to removing this barrier completely. Somehow, I seemed to have been the bolder more optimistic one, because although I could see no immediate prospect of removing the distance barrier in the foreseeable future, I held on to the hope that our love would see us through. Haven't we all heard that love conquers all? Anyhow, this 'news' hit me like a freight train. I was disbelieving at first and thought it might be just a bad dream. Then I speculated, "No, they couldn't have meant that", trying to make sense of what I'd just been told, you know, trying to rationalise. "They'll soon come to their senses", I would say to myself. But as the hours went by and turned into days, the reality became stronger.
Since I was so mentally and psychologically unprepared for this calamity, the full impact of it was lost on me for a few days yet. But when the pain and the rejection eventually crashed upon me, I was a complete wreck. It's impact on me was that it is likely that I didn't eat a proper meal for weeks and I have a vague recollection of wandering the streets aimlessly, sometimes not even remembering to wear a coat to keep out the cold. I failed to turn up for work for about a month and remember once being brought home to my front door in a police patrol car in the middle of the night. I think I must have been found walking alone, dazed, on the deserted street. The fact is that I basically lost my mind.
It took a gargantuan effort on my part to get through this period and to pull myself together. But the pain, always, the pain. It caused me to dig deep into my emotional and mental reserves and forced me to button up, sit down and study for my qualifying exams, which I had been putting off for years. But the emotional wound was deep and it healed very slowly indeed.
I was never going to let this happen to me ever again, I promised myself. So going forward I seem to have carried with me to any new relationship the baggage from this episode in my life. I am constantly haunted by the fear that this will happen again, and this fear has influenced my conduct within subsequent relationships that I've been in. And I'm not sure if it's a good thing, since I'm constantly treading carefully (perhaps overly) being too fearful to commit and to give my all as I know I'm capable of doing.
I have written this post in the hope that talking about it will purge my mind of this fear. My self-confidence and self-esteem have taken a severe bashing. It's impact upon my life is profound and I have considered seeking some kind of professional help. Sometime this week I'm booked to see a psychiatrist. I guess this sounds like I'm a bit wonky in the head, but really I think it's for the best.
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