Femme, Denial

Dear Butch,

I shook my head at you from across the table, trying to remove your words out of my ears and my memory. I had just reached the denial stage roughly two weeks before T-Rex ended the relationship. Before I even knew about the seven stages of grieving a relationship and my upcoming plummet into them.

Over drinks, you had told me the secret you could no longer keep inside of you. You told me the one fact about my relationship with T-Rex that I was refusing to face. You and I both knew that this was not news to me.  That sick, deep, stabbing feeling in my stomach had alerted me before our meeting.

For months I denied and justified. Even though the signs were like the sunlight peeking through lace curtains, growing brighter and bolder with time. Until the end when I was blinded with what I was refusing to face for months, when the words came out of his mouth. I had chalked up worry in my brain and nerves in my stomach as my own insecurities. I would find pieces of the truth in the house, pushed into drawers and under piles of paper, hoping not to be found. I didn’t have to go seeking them at first, they found me. The more that I discovered without intention, the more I closed my eyes and covered my ears. This was not going to happen, not to us.

I coated nausea and uncertainties with hope. That is all I could hold on to, hope and trust.  I couldn’t and wouldn’t accept the truth. If I ignored it, it would just go away. I started to tell myself I was losing my mind until I started to believe it. I used logic to remove my doubt, but the feeling remained.  I just kept telling myself this wasn’t real, I just kept shaking my head and moving forward.

Lesson learned, always trust your gut.

Love,

Femme